When I was 6

I was starting school.

Nobody told me

school was like

shark-infested water

and you’ve been tossed in

with a bleeding leg

expected to fend for yourself.

For the last eleven years

I’ve been drowning and fighting off sharks.

But I’ve realized that the sharks

were nothing more than

insecurities manifested,

thoughts fostered by other injured swimmers.

And once I knew that,

I found the shore.

And my leg was healed

because I am so much wiser

than a creature of imagination,

mine or anyone else’s,

that wants to cause me harm.