Inadequate

Inadequate: not adequate or sufficient; inept or unsuitable; defective, imperfect, incomplete.

Which could describe me better at a time like this?

My shortcomings have grown larger and larger it seems in the last few months, or maybe I'm finally willing to face them. Faults of my own that I use to brush off my shoulder have become constant nags.

Looking in a mirror is almost frightening for I find myself scraping away into my own soul, tearing apart the layers of decay and molding filth of habits too old and wreckless to hold on to. Brazened ideals and worshipped dreams have found their glory rusted and tarnished in the caverns of my mind. Things that I prayed and wished for so desperately have been re-examined, sliced open with a piercing gaze and wounding knife that holds no mercy towards frivolity and must-haves that now seem so childish and naive.

Corners that were once filled with the pulsing stars of heaven upon which I wished so oft have been swept cleaned and I find my closets empty. Imperfection crawls in with her spindly legs and spins a web of festering defectiveness. My thoughts are sucked in and wrapped away in her sticky threads, overpowered by worries that prick into my skin and soak into my bones.

Ripping myself out of the sludge of Doubt's web is always so much harder than I remember. Her unwelcome thoughts scratch their way into my head and prick at the fragile hopes I hold on to. With my back turned, Fear moves in and I find myself racing down this tunnel of suffocating darkness. Racing past Fear and her stabbing claws, searching for light, any light, to reach out to me and help me out of the decaying rut I've placed myself in.

But tonight I washed away those charred words that have been branded on my soul. I scraped away at the still smoldering pain that so many have burned into my heart. I scrubbed and scratched away at the dead flesh until I stood in a puddle of gray and my skin glowed pink with redemption. Then, in the wake of my personal restitution, I opened up my still blistering heart and released the ghosts that have shackled me to the nightmares of doubt and fear, and there, I found the beauty that is me.

Incomplete, but wholly me...which is enough.