Failure begets reflection, begets…

            Snow drifts off nearby branches, beaming piercing sparkles of light to me. Shards of chilled air aren’t quite the match for the feelings beating upon my ribs. A path through the chaff lies before me, unyielding gray winding toward the gnarled brambles in the distance, all life in stasis.

I am surrounded on all sides by failure, regret, mourning, acutely represented by the fallen, bowing shoots of withered plants at my flank. Do I make the easy choice and bow with them, easing the passage of time resting on their furtive shoulders? Or do I take the path with its winding unknowns, ducking under crestfallen branches, stepping over puddles of regret, toward the place of longing and fulfillment?

How easy it would be to give up, and what a temporary relief it must be. In past times, in previous endeavors, have I acquiesced to the easy way out. But not here, and not this day. The burning within to create, to tell stories, it heeds not any call to yield its fire, to obey the commands of rejection to stay down and shut up.

I shant be silenced, by neither critic nor rejection. My desire will not be diluted by the mirage of perceived success. Success will be by my definition, not the world’s. As surely as the clouds may cover the sky, I may falter, but I will not stop. No other pursuit carries the same meaning, nor does it bear any influence on true fulfillment.

FIN