doubt is when you place too much faith in someone’s else’s convictions. when you use that lowercase “i,” when you won’t own up, won’t speak your mind. and you feel like you’re drowning, drowning, falling under the waves of their harsh stares and criticizing glares. and you feel like you can’t breathe, breathe, exhale even though you’re the one holding your breath. and you let their words replace your own until your words are no longer yours anymore.

and that’s because you let them. 

you let them bully your hopes and your dreams while you stood idly by and let them suffocate the very thing that could’ve changed the world. you made yourself believe that they were superior and placed them on a pedestal of your own making until all you could hear was a cry for conformity and a “you can’t, you can’t, that’s dumb.” you let them plague your mind with doubt and uncertainty and you refuse to speak anymore.

but perhaps you never though to consider,

that maybe they were wrong. that just because they say your words won’t float doesn’t mean it won’t float and rise up to make a difference. and you’re going to be okay because you’re going to stand up and pull those weeds of doubt from the crevices if your mind. and when you look across that battlefield and you see them pelting hateful words and seeds of doubt at your feet, let it be a reminder that you are only human. that you are alive, that you are full of ideas, of love, of hope. that you refuse to succumb to the darkness of doubt, that you are worth listening to, and that you are no less than 

a capital “I.”