Self-Deception Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

I may have once lived,
With a kept self-deception.
Just to prove I could undo,
The impossible others knew.

All that I am,
Is what I choose to be.
And only I have the ability,
To qualify what it is I feel.

I had been taught to limit my dreams,
To pursue those already done.
And to follow in the footsteps made,
Paved by others to accept by everyone.

But my dreams to crave are my own to taste.
And I knew my path to take,
Had nothing to do with a familiar place.

I may have once lived,
With a kept self-deception.
Just to prove I could undo,
The impossible others knew.

And stubbornly my beliefs I kept.
Knowing my dreams to 'see',
Were meant for 'me' to keep.
And not to dismiss as impossibilities.

And today I am free to feel,
That reality of a path I took.
With a faith kept to leave behind,
What others thought impossible to find.
Or dispute my doing was a waste of time.

No longer am I living with self-deception.
Although grateful at a time self-deceiving,
Was a choice I made to undo limitation...
Of any to stay in my mind to roam freely.
To convince me of what I could or could not...
Eventually achieve to have done.

All that I am,
Is what I choose to be.
And only I have the ability,
To qualify what it is I feel to know it real.
Or not.