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Find self esteem without a mirror.

Take a crack at pride.

Target the tyrant’s secrets.

Seek out integrity where it hides

Walk a while, run a mile, rest a minute

There is more to shapes and form than function within it.

Life is a contest or lately a protest.

Either way I detest the expression “do your best”.

Only to be critiqued and catalogued

By those who have never had a hand in creation

Only a finger in the paint of someone else’s art.

Expose the weakness below the layers of plastic skin

Filter out the smoke that holds onto your breath.

Let the shortness choke you as survival builds Strength to strike a blow.

Begin to grasp what you can’t let go.

Life is a contest or lately a protest.

Either way I detest the expression “do your best”.

Only to be critiqued and catalogued

By those who have never had a hand in creation

Only a finger in the paint of someone else’s art.

Produce something of merit

A structure to weather the storm

Time travel, collect or debt

Posthumous fame is all you can ask for.