Give me Back my Ignorance

I've half-written a good number of poems, but I never seem to finish them. I guess I'm posting this for the fact that I finished it. The title of the poem is the title for the post.

Days I sought for voice
I already knew it
It didn’t hide in the shadow
The shadow of another man’s greatness
Not in the footfalls of an alien path
No, I had tasted and tested it
A wine of my own making
Made bitter by youth of mind
A blade forged in the fire of my ideals
Full of imagined fractures, faults

I buried it, thought it weak
Not for any lack of virtue or
Particular hint of vice
Voice would stutter like
Jagged breaths of frigid air
A sad little death rattle of clarity
Half-glossy sort of half-truth
You weren’t good enough
How could you ever be?

My throat ran dry like
A kind of fleshy river
Too long neglected
Too little appreciated
When voice returned
It was bitter
Disappointed
And coughing up the blood
The blood of my innocence
The blood of my ignorance