Potential.

There is an anxiety that is associated with this word. This ear piercing, nauseating, word that is so gently tossed around.

As soon as this word leaves lips I forget faces and panic sets in.

I'm still struggling to comprehend how a nine letter word has the power to make me question everything. Ruin me. My relationships, hobbies, performance, confidence and love. Dismemeber my well-being, security, ambition, drive, and will to continue on. Potential. Defined as: Having or showing the capability to become or develop into something in the future. 

Potentional punches me in the gut. Jabs me in the jaw with a full fist of fear. Lands a devastating blow to my head, strips me of any egotistical particle in my body, and I become numb. It lies to me. As my blood begins to clot, potential comes in with another combo. Tells me I have already failed. That I am not enough, that I will never possess the capability needed to surviven this vast abyss that is my future. 

Potential lives to taunt me. Having me question my personal relationship with myself. Unbuckle the seatbelt to my life and put you behind the wheel? Since when did potential drive me? Define me? Ruin my stability and poison me into an imbalanced, heartache, never been enough state? No. 

No.

So here goes everything,

Dear, potential. You've been talking, but it's time for you to listen. You've been dictating, but I am the rightful ruler.

Dear, potential. I am already a radical women. I do not need to develop into one.

Dear, potential. You and the future scare the hell out of me. But the days keep coming and I keep going so who is landing the punches now? 

Dear, potential. I have been broken, but I am still whole. You once convinced me that I was never gonna amount to anything, I forgive you. I forgive the faceless faces you inhabited and haunted me through; convincing me I was not good enough and would never be enough. Well enough is enough. I do not need your validation. I will get my own. 

Dear, potential. You don't scare me anymore. You were wrong about me.