I wish the doubt hadn't tore at me like it did. I wish I could hold a brush without the weight of someone else's verdict slowing my stroke.

Their words ate me alive.

I am a carcass of what I once was. A sower of seeds, with my chest as the soil. All I can do is propagate another, and rot.

They couldn't imagine I was already living my dream. An artist, who had never had artist peers, thrust into a facility of them. They understood parts of me that weren't seen by others before. I could have cried. I would have lived that life indefinitely.

It was my paradise.

All I ever fucking heard from people at the time was doubt.

"Do you think you can make money off that?"

"Do you think you can get a job?"

Truth be told, I didn't really care if I had an art career. I wanted to learn, and I did. But all this skepticism from others weighed on me.