Out Of Shape

I was made a thing of the nature. To brave the buffeting winds and to be shaped by them. But opinions of people around me shape me now. Where the beat of waves and the swirl of crashing waterfalls should have left me gasping, criticism does it to me. The thunder and the roaring clouds were to make me shiver, but competition does it better. I fear the judgements passed on me and on my acts by those watching me more than I fear the darkness of unknown trails. I bend more under scrutiny than under the heavy, incessant rain. I soak in the fleeting appreciation at workplace and rarely step out to soak in the breeze. I am turned, twisted, formed and re-formed, beaten out of one shape and into another, constantly. But not by the elements I am made of, but by things so alien that I am unrecognisable to myself.