I heard once,
Upon the grapevine,
Of a doubter without peer,
An acid-blooded critic,
An aristarch of the literary arts,
Incessant in his critique,
Cutting into my mind,
A spiteful tongue,
Critical to the extreme,
Words that fray the psyche,
The worst kind of detractor,
He doesn’t want me to improve,
Just to stop trying,
To stop striving,
And return to the void of obscurity,
Eventually I come face to face,
With the churl,
This cruel critic,
And his list of my flaws,
An acerbic and biting index,
I see only me,
In the cracked mirror.

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