About LarryLegend

While on a video call with my therapist

Trying to make sense of an extraordinarily exasperating week

I was attempting to explain the details of how I found myself on this particular path 

She was patiently dissecting my excuses while not letting me justify my regression

Slowly, methodically, invalidating my reasoning

While simultaneous admonishing me for relinquishing my boundaries 

Still, I was hoping for reassurance

That somehow

Despite it all

Progress was still being made 

Even in the midst of my recent backsliding

Even though

Lately, I felt more akin to a man

Who was hanging by the end of his rope

Whose grip was loosening, as he was starting to slide

Feeling as if his hands were covered in oil and there was no one that cared to save him

Instead of giving me the reassurance that I so desperately desired

My therapist tilted her head, looked right into my eyes and asked

Larry, tell me something

Who are you

And my expression must have conveyed my confusion 

Because her gaze softened, while she wet her lips, she began to clarify her question

I want you to tell me 

Who 

You 

Are

Who is Larry

I don’t mean who he is to everyone else, but who is Larry to you

Because until you know who he is, these conversations are simply going to continue

To be just that, conversations

I need for you to provide some illumination into your inner being

Who is the real person that Larry is seeing

Now me believing in my therapist and hoping to receive an unbiassed view

Slowly took a deep breath and began to spew my inner most thoughts

I am a son who is afraid that he will never achieve the expectations of his father

Even though his father has never given him any expectations to achieve

This same son, wants to follow the path that his father has left for him

But it has been so long that he is starting to forget where that path begins

I am a son who is trying to protect his mother from the pain that inflicts her

Knowing that the task at hand is as impossible as it sounds

Still trying to make it up to her for being a whole ass when younger

I am a father who has given his son every resource to succeed 

Yet is terrified that his son will not reach his full potential

And by allowing him not to have made sacrifices when he was younger

Perhaps he has not prepared him for this world and doomed him to fail

I am a husband who loves his wife with everything that he has

But is not confident that his everything is not enough

That if I squeeze too tight or not tight enough

She will slip between through my fingers, like grains of sand in an hourglass

I am a friend who feels that he is orbiting on the edge of his own inner circle

Slowly drifting through space like shards of a shattered moon

Kept at arm’s length

Just close enough to be accepted, but far enough to be ignored

Wishing that he would reach out more to those that he loves

But afraid of the pain that it will cause if he truly allows them in 

Or if they are taken from his life

I am a writer who needs to write more 

Yet still only writes when “the feeling hits”

Often ignoring verses that materialize in my spirit

Sacrificing my passion, my inspiration, and my insight at the altar of boredom and laziness

I am a poet who feels every emotion on the spectrum

Every high and every low and all those in between

And though my highs have reached the gates of heaven

Conversely my lows have touched the depths of hell

Fluctuating between joy and sorrow

Riding the waves of empathy as if I was learning to surf during a hurricane

Fighting the undertow of depression while embracing the rise hope

I am the employee whose expectations for himself

Are higher than any manger could place on him 

Whose criticism is harsher than any reprimand that could ever be given

But who is still afraid 

Afraid that one day

They will pull back the curtains and see that I am fraud

I am the thinker who over thinks

The lover who does not love himself

The one who forgives the transgressions of others

But has forgotten how to forgive his own

I am he who loves solitude, but knows that the silence can be deafening

So loud that it pierces the eardrums 

At times I am lonely

Even while being in the midst of a crowd

A clown who has lost his ability to smile

But I guess

If we are being honest and if the truth be told

I am simply a man

A man who is afraid that his best isn’t good enough

And when he is gone

No one will remember that he was here

And no one will have even cared that he is no more

With that I stopped shaking

Calmed myself 

And began to breathe again

My therapist sat down her notebook

Slowly removed her glasses

And with a smile, she told me

Now the work can finally begin

                                                                                                                                                              Larry A Sheats