Unfinished Notes - Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

I don't do accolades.
Like the ones who do it.
With the giving of them freely.
I've been wounded too many times,
By the telling of explicit truths.

And when I realized this done,
Had been to discourage me...
From my pursuits,
Only then did I become serious.
With a choosing I could prove,
To myself 'first' with a doing.

I needed to achieve my best.
And not leave behind unfinished notes,
I wrote to suggest I made attempts...
To appease the ease of an outgrowing I felt,
Of an accepted mediocrity I knew too well.