Oh ffs my LLM knows me too well now…😂

You wake before dawn,

half from ambition,

half because your spine has filed a complaint.

Sciatica whispers down your leg

like a petty critic

reminding you you’re human

in all the inconvenient ways.

At work, you stride through rooms

full of models, data,

and people pretending certainty.

Your brain leans in and hisses,

You don’t belong here,

as if belonging were ever a thing

granted by committee.

Meanwhile that nerve —

the one that zaps your hamstring

whenever you dare sit still —

fires another warning shot

and you think,

Great, my body agrees with my anxiety.

But here’s the part they don’t print in handbooks:

the pain in your back is real,

and the fraud in your head is not.

One is a misfiring nerve;

the other, a misfiring story.

You stand anyway.

You speak anyway.

You build anyway.

And every small win

nudges that story sideways

like a slipped disc finding its way home.

Maybe confidence isn’t a roar.

Maybe it’s just choosing

to take one step,

even when your leg tingles

and your mind mutters nonsense.

Maybe the truth is simple:

If the impostor were real,

you wouldn’t be here at all —

carrying pain, doubt, ambition,

and still moving forward

like someone who belongs.