Confession: An Exercise in Vulnerability

Last month I did something I don't often do. 

As in, I don't ever do. 

I read a poem I had written off my phone. In front of a crowd. And it was how I set the tone for the monthly spoken word night I host.

I have so many mental reasons why I tell myself I don't do this. 'You're a professional! Real performance poets memorise everything! People expect a certain standard from you!'

And I'm not chucking the baby out with the bathwater. There are good reasons I memorise my poems. I want to wear them like skin for the audiences I share with. I want to know I can look into people's eyes while I share what I have carved out with care. I want to be able to breathe the full life I intended into the phrases I crafted.

But, in all of those reasons, what am I saying about others? 

What am I role modelling to the student I urged to share,
even if it was just one shakey line from a phone,
even if it was just saying their name,
​even if was just sharing their breath on a stage?

I am saying I am past that. That I am bigger than that. Above that. Beyond that.

But, here and now, I am calling myself out. 

I am the student, who sometimes needs to urge myself to share,
even if it's just one shakey line from a phone,
even if it's just saying my name,
​even if it's just sharing my breath on a stage.

I'm a learner. I'm small. I'm a work in progress.

So, I did this. I took my own advice. I became vulnerable. 

I made a confession.

​A confession;

a confession before any applause
Let me confess that I often feel like a fraud

I wear self-doubt with confidence
I frame all negatives as positive
I am persistently optimistic
which just means I often lack honestness

Feel like
a writer who never writes
a teacher who never learns
I’m a book that lays open
but certain pages never turn

I glued them shut.

I spend my life creating spaces for others to be vulnerable
yet somehow the sharing of my own scars seems too uncomfortable
What I celebrate in others I ridicule in my self
I recognise the arrogance in giving it, when I never ask for help

I spend my life creating spaces for others to create in
while muttering words I condemn in others: ‘I don’t feel creative’
You’ll never see me perform poetry that I haven’t memorised
yet I’ll clap the loudest for the shaky ones who share their ‘just scribbled’ lines
​
So, may this confession be more than another performance
May it hold the confessional characteristic of being transformative
May I step down off the pedestals I built for my ego
​May I treat me the same way I try to treat other people