Picking up the pieces

One thing about being too critical of yourself is that nothing ever seems good enough. The words that once easily danced on the paper - would slowly lose their ease. The dreams wouldn't have that starry sheen - they'd just fade into nothingness. The poems wouldn't feel alive, the stories would get lost, and the soul struggles.

Second guessing becomes a habit, and you wouldn't remember how everything was so effortless in the past. You try to create again and again, but something always falls short. You have this perfect image in head, but nothing seems to come close enough. Even though you know that perfection is not possible all the time, you'd still seek for it - and in the process you lose bits and pieces of yourself that has made you delightfully you. 

I know this. I do. But I really don't understand why I keep trashing my own ideas. Why I always end up weighing my worth on a scale that never existed. Or why I feel so little all the time.

I wish I could stop finding my worth in perfectly written prose, or beautifully woven poems, or elegantly drawn lines - Instead I wish I could find myself in the mess of thoughts I have, in the imperfect poems I write, and in the stories that keep me alive. 

I wish I could pick all the bits and pieces of myself that I've given up. I wish I could pull myself together, and rewrite my story over again. I wish I could bring back the time - where everything felt so effortless and every word was so full of life.