Falling Up

I fell a hundred times,

Before I learned to walk.

I did not know what failure meant,

No fear could make me balk.

Then came the spring of youth,

I believed I could win it all.

Every challenge seemed puny,

Nothing could make me stall.

And just as when I was learning to walk,

I tumbled and fell once more.

But when I tried to pick myself up this time,

A hand pulled me back to the floor.

As I turned to see who held me back,

I was amazed to find not a soul.

But every time I tried to rise,

the force Swayed me from my goal.

As I looked within, I was appalled to find,

The force was none but my own fear.

The fear to fail, the fear I'd derail,

The fear of being judged, of feeling drear.

I wondered why the lens of others

Should my guiding light be.

They know not my dreams nor my struggles,

My plans are best known to me.

I choose to be that child again,

Who rises with every fall.

For failure lives not in the falling down,

It's failing to rise at all.