Doubting Tamas

Doubting Tamas

You come and visit me,
move your baggage in,
you take over all my space
and rearrange my things.

You moved in and out
my whole entire life—
you never go for when
you leave my side.

Little habits to break the pattern
and turn the volume up.
Listen for a different chorus
to rattle down to my bones.

Alternate the shameful scenes
that occupy the whole of us.
Time to make a new friend
and leave behind Doubting Tamas.

Doubting Tamas
who sticks to the bed.
Doubting Tamas
who fills up your head
with reasons to not do anything but doubt.
Oh, Doubting Tamas—
it’s time you move out.

Frozen for many years
with nothing to show for it—
no art, no love, no music recorded
to show the path’s progression.

Tied down with guilt,
and worry and shame,
the couch and the TV call
to mask your feelings
and hide your doubt
that breaks down your work.

Doubting Tamas
you take control.
Doubting Tamas
you stop.
Make a decision to miss roll call—
Doubting Tamas,
you’ve hit a wall.

No more little worries
of how you respond.
No more lack of courage—
time to create.

No more self-defeating—
there is a new way.
No more mass of anger
for empty days.

Doubting Tamas
you took away my laugh.
Made me so cold—
can’t warm it in a bath.

Doubt, I give you too much clout,
you run my life like a boxing bout.
Beating myself up like a tired prize fighter,
down for the count ‘cause I lost my fire.

Doubt, you keep me on the couch—
I’m sullen and moody,
like a grouchy old man.
I can’t get warm, my skin’s too cold.
The self-limiting belief is getting old.

Doubting Tamas
you’re like a friend
that nay-says me time and again.
It’s about time I drop this shit,
warm up my body,
and get on with it.

Doubting Tamas
you put my head in the sand.
I lost my strength
to take a stand.

All I do is stay inside—
a knock on the door
makes me run and hide.

Doubting Tamas
I’m feeling blue.
My energy is gone,
I sleep all day.

I’m convinced what is wrong is true—
it’s about time
I found a new way.

Does doubt have a daughter?
Maybe she’s called Fear.
Worry and anxiety are
her friends and her peers.

A stale statement made
with no quip of the tongue—
all the ruminations
you never felt when young.

Disaster, terror, and doubt.
No movement—
you’re frozen.
Not like a Disney song,
but one where you’re dozing.

Steeping off on an action hangover,
dreading the next moment,
wish it to be—

Over and done.
You, Doubting Tamas,
son of a gun.

I crucify you—
and not for your sins,
but in order for me
to rise again.