Forward, No Turn Back (Poem)

Forward, No Turn Back

Look at it!

Consider options.

Flee. Withdraw.

Return. Go

into yourself. Engage fear

then watch it work out.

*

Run in place?

That question gets this

same answer:

Stretching fear

to breaking point, every step's

forward, no turn back.

© 2011 Maureen E. Doallas

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I'm participating in the #Trust30 challenge, an online writing/reflection initiative for which a prompt is posted daily. All of the prompts to date are here.

This poem, in Shadorma form (6 lines following a 3-5-3-3-7-5 syllabic pattern), is my response to the 12th prompt from "art of audacity" coach Lachlan Cotter:

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is fear holding you ack from living your fullest life and being truly self-expressed? Put yourself in the shoes of the you who's already lived your dream and write out the answers to the following:

Is the insecurity you're defending worth the dream you'll never realize? Or the love you'll never venture? Or the joy you'll never feel?

Will the blunder matter in 100 years? Or 10 weeks? Or 10 days? Or 10 minutes?

Can you be happy being anything less than who you really are?

Now Do. The Thing. You Fear.

* * *

My responses to date, all in the form of poems, are:

Ways In and Out

Getting the Rhythm

What You Imagine

Let Me Tell You

Unreal

Words to Live By

Birthplace

Answer in Time

Giving Meaning to Others

Zigzag

Fifteen Minutes to Count Down