Poem: I still need to write the speech

I still need to write the speech

I have stories to tell, I suppose,
but they do not come out
the way I have imagined they would,
and I worry about whether
they mean the things I want to mean
or say too much that I would not wish to say.
It is only that I do not wish to cause you harm
or be inappropriate or unkind
or make a fool of myself.
I know there is a duty
and a purpose and I must fulfill
what is intended, must be
emptied of my own needs.
I am not so good at that, 
but maybe, now I have admitted it,
there will be room
for new possibilities.

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