'Tis another sunrise, bright and yellow.
Yet the world that holds me feels so hollow.
My ev'ry breath is but an empty cask.
Yet ev'ry step I take bears a full flask.
Ev'ry thought that I hold makes the ground quake.
Ev'ry conviction makes the wide sky break.
The path I chose remained a cracked tankard.
Yet my journey is a brimming tankard.
All certainty dissolved, and naught remains.
Each thought gives birth to thought in endless chains.
My life is but a bottle with no hole.
I am the sot who wholly lacks control.
Who am I now to stay here, bound in doubt?
To drink, to think—and still to go without?
I see that look in your eyes,
That sparkle with shine,
Asking me for something more
That I cannot provide.
I don’t want to hurt you again.
Why give you half of me
When you deserve me at my best,
And I’m just not there yet?
I want to tell you, you can trust me.
Your feelings are safe in my hands,
But I might end up letting go
And chasing after something that’ll hurt me more.
I know you’re what’s best for me if I healed,
If I stayed focused and put myself first.
I could be the man of your dreams,
Instead, I’m like any other man.
I wish I was like Atlas and could carry your load.
I’d tell you my cup is empty, but I can take more.
But I’m on the edge, with one more bad day
Enough to make me spill everything over.
Spared a change—
Spared a week, spared everything that made me weak.
Spared the week that made me weak.
Spared the people who think I am a “geek.”
Spared the light that made me weak,
From a dream that wasn’t supposed to find an end,
Because there was nothing to seek.
I catch my own eyes in the bathroom mirror
before I even turn the cold water on.
I watch every quiet, hopeful plan I made
get quietly picked apart and gone.
I wear this skin, I answer to my name,
I’m the author of every doubt I hide.
I pull down my own small victories
and stand my own worst foe, inside.
When 5 a.m. hits with its pale blue light
and promises a second chance to try,
I drag out old mistakes from years ago
just to give myself a reason why.
I tell myself I am not man enough,
that every step forward is a fake,
that the moment things get steep or real
I’ll bend beneath the weight and break.
I sit at my desk in the afternoon slump,
building a maze out of unread mail.
I lock the doors, throw away the keys,
and then wonder why I’m set to fail.
I dissect every single word I said,
turning harmless moments into debt.
I don't need anyone to tear me down,
I haven't even given myself a chance yet.
And yet I'm the one who holds the pen,
the one who keeps writing out the fear.
If I'm the architect of all this noise,
I'm the only one who can clear it from here.
Self doubt, too look up dares not
Who, with dropped reins says:
" Of its trust, all, now placed in
Your hands, Lord, not mine.
Whose guide's, which holed route on is
Filled deeper, sadder.
Life's coachman's. Life's broad speaking.
Til its sun's decline."
A storm boils and simmers
It never goes away
The rumble the ligtning
The darkness
He can love you forever
He can love you in actions
He can love you in words
The storm will still build and tear you down
You need to love you
Need to give yourself kindness
You need to care for you
.... need to know you deserve it and maybe then the storm will fade.
I go down now, thinking about my life
Thinking about how it could not suffice
My greed, my boundless wants
and all of my empty flaunts.
As the endless sea pulls me down
I wonder upon my death, will anyone break down?
Were my relations honest or were they false?
I believe I'll never know, as death and I perform a waltz.
I cannot tell what waits ahead of me
but I hope it's peace and serenity.
my heart is hurting
I don't want to feel this way
when in doubt get out
Love is the balm to all ails.
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
Doubt wraps me in a fabric
of uncoated leaves
on this near treacherous eve
as my pillow rests beneath cloudbursts:
I feel distanced from the elements of earth
while stars blink dimly
these hands cannot reach..
Will forbearance come for me ;
be the thread binding me until
wind- washed air cuddles
my arms through mist
of an incandescent dew ,
If only to savor that resurrected light
in glum hours-- cycle after cycle--
and await dawn's birthing
from night's roaring, thunderous tremor:
I listen fiercely then calmly to tweets
arising through trees' sway; a glance, a gaze
tracing pulses of another cycle's turn:
It is near July, my soul feeling somewhat
ecstatic about summer's arrival-- its flavor
squeezing the juice of wild abandon;
as morning shimmers
against my feeble breath, allowing
this godly intervention of renewal
oh so miraculous...my sense of doubt
waning waning on wraps of thin air.
You call Him a God of pain, a master of a cruel terrain,
But how else does a sleeping soul break its heavy mortal chain?
If the world were only comfort, a soft and endless sleep,
We would never look inside ourselves, nor ever climb the steep.
You say He stands aloof and high, ignoring every tear and cry,
While forcing helpless, fragile things to bow beneath His sky.
He is a loving Father, guiding heirs through shifting sands,
Our training is the molding of His patient, tender hands.
But look closer at the "True Sons" and the paths of thorns they trod—
It was not a cosmic punishment, but the wounding of a God
Who bleeds within the creation, who shares the heavy weight,
Not a tyrant on a distant throne deciding human fate.
The illusion is a heavy fog, the fray is fierce and blind,
But the pressure of the dark is what refines the human mind.
He does not demand perfection from the lost who weep and pray,
But the cracks inside our broken hearts let the light illuminate the way.
For love is not a gentle sun that keeps us safe from harm,
Sometimes it is the winter wind that wakes us to the dawn.
I stand before the mirror,
expecting something familiar
something that feels like me.
But what looks back
is a distortion
of everything I thought I knew.
At first, I call it deceit.
A reflection that lies,
a surface that twists
what should have been simple.
But then it shifts.
Not the mirror
me.
Perhaps it was never distortion,
only a truth
I refused to recognize.
Blinded by what I believed I was,
I failed to see
what I had become.
The eyes appear lit,
yet all I see is dimness.
The face seems cheerful,
yet it feels distant
detached,
unreached.
A girl stands before the mirror.
But the reflection
she lives the life
I was supposed to live.
And somewhere between the two,
I remain
uncertain
of which one
is truly me.
I can't piece together my thoughts, that's why I right poems
There's too much stuff up there, too many problems
Righting things down makes things easier
It organizes my thoughts, makes them less linear
When my brain is on fire and I can't put it out
When it's filled with confusion and doubt
I just start writing and it all goes away
Because a few words can really make my day
In the mind’s dim clearing
a single seed takes root~
small, harmless, almost tender,
a question you never meant
to water.
But doubt grows quickly.
It learns the shape of your fears,
drinks from every hesitation,
spreads its shadowed branches
over your brightest thoughts.
Its fruit is bitter knowing,
the kind that sours the tongue~
what if, what if, what if...
hanging heavy like overripe plums
you’re afraid to touch.
And here is the lesson:
the tree is not the forest.
Step back, breathe,
let sunlight find the leaves
you thought were closing in.
For even the Tree of Doubt
cannot survive long
when you choose to stand
in the clearing
and name it.
454.
Prayer Against Doubt
Oh Father God, deliver us from doubt
May we be confident of our whereabout
Oh Lord Jesus, save us who are like Peter
Grant us faith against stormy wind and water
Oh Holy Spirit, rescue us from unfaithfulness
Be our rock against double-mindedness
This we ask in our Almighty God. Amen.
-12/20/2015
(Dumarao)
*Gideons Prayer Poems Against Life's Problems
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