Failure Is That Me?

Here’s one that leans honest and tender without trying to fix the feeling just naming it

I carry failure like a second name,
something whispered before I enter a room.
Every effort feels almost—
almost enough, almost right, almost seen.

I measure my worth in unfinished things,
in doors that didn’t open fast enough,
in the way hope learns to flinch
before it fully stands.

I try, I try—
but the world keeps score in ways
I was never taught to win.
So I smile like it doesn’t sting
when it does.

Even my victories feel borrowed,
like they’ll be reclaimed any moment now.
I wait for the tap on the shoulder,
the quiet you didn’t earn this.

Still, I wake up.
Still, I show up with bruised belief
and hands that shake but don’t let go.
If that’s failure, then it’s one
that breathes, that bleeds, that refuses
to disappear.

And maybe that’s the part no one sees—
that surviving the weight of thinking you’re a failure
is its own kind of success,
even if it never feels like it.