Feeling your worth

Stories of fiction and fact
remind me of a painful truth.
Why treat yourself without tact?
Why be hurt without proof?

Find those old bad lessons
that have burned in afresh.
Outdated bias, old gossip,
weave a rotten old mesh.

Influential people you meet
will spread some old trash.
Scrape their bitter opinions
off your accepting flesh.

Others’ old battles
are not yours to fight.
Nothing devours old shadows
like the truth of light.