When people spoke about disappointment,
They told me of the pity glances they received, and the motivational words they heard around them.
They spoke to me, about how they were stuck,
Between a rock and a hard place, but managed,
To come out unscathed.
When people told me about their biggest failures,
They always told me about their biggest regrets.
The missed opportunity, the lack of effort.
They told me about how people rallied around them in support,
And eventually picked them up from the dark hell that had surrounded them.
Each time I spoke to people about failure,
They told me a story of success, the exact opposite of what I had asked to hear.
No one told me about the sleepless nights that followed failure, or
The unending repetition, repetition, repetition of a singular instance in your brain,
Playing out like a broken tape recorder
No one told me that your emotions would swallow you whole, and
You would be hugged by the ugly, heavy arms of expectation,
Which would, slowly,
Slowly but surely,
Consume you.
No one told me about the physical brutality of failure,
That it would suck the hope out of you and push you into a corner so extreme,
That you shrunk far into your own thoughts and emotions.
And no one told me about the frightening claw of appearing normal,
An act that deserved every Emmy, Tony, and Oscar there is, because
We are conditioned not to let people see our weaknesses
No one told me that failure was like love,
That I’d think of it far more than it thought of me,
But some time into thinking about it,
I’d feel a renewed sense of hope,
A spark of ambition,
And like a dying flame,
Be used to light another candle.
Tejas Rao 