A Life in Five Parts
i – innocence
To all the little barefoot boys and girls:
thank you for making your image immortal.
You innocently belittle the problems of the world
and you remind us that purity exists still
in a tangible, beautiful form
because sometimes our adult brains
and our work-molded minds
and our rational, logical, goal-oriented, empty-dream-chasing-selves
forget along the way that it's true.
The years of cynical rain pounding against
the edifice of our brain
begins to leave thin veins of rust upon our hopes,
staining our view of the world,
tainting our vision as the veins spider across
and become the new network of thinking we call "adulthood".
If this is what it means to grow up,
then leave me in the sandbox down the street
with the little barefoot boys and girls
whose occupation is giggling
and whose focus lies truly in the moment.
I'm tired of hearing people say "it's child's play"
because "child's play" is underrated
and said only with the bias of hindsight
and seasoned wisdom
that comes with aged amnesia.
For children carry the great ability
to imagine the unimaginable,
to stretch and expand their minds,
to wrap around the entire universe and back,
to reach out and lasso the mind of God.
It's work we forget that wears off with age.
So to those little barefoot boys and girls
who play in the blaring sun all day ‘til dark,
making mud pies
and un-washable stains of black on their feet soles,
where shoes should be but do not belong,
because the barefoot boys and girls
carry the lands they've dreamt of
and kingdoms they've imagined
on the canvas of their soles:
don’t grow up.
ii – breaking
Looking at all these medals,
pieces of metal
that were once tangible representations
of how hard I ran
and how high I jumped
and how far I threw,
but have lost their meaning over time,
it all makes me homesick for a home I have yet to know.
There are the arts and crafts
and books from school
that stopped in time,
only went on to gain dust,
to begin obscuring what it once was,
to begin a hibernation for forever,
since it's not needed anymore,
and never will be.
Maybe one day
the only power it will all possess
will be to provoke tears
when I realize how far I've come
when in 20 years I reminisce
and am struck with sadness
at how fast it all went
as I pause
and admire the finger paint blur
I see from my school years,
see how my life was a colorful blur
through time and living,
and I'll weep like a child
because these childish things teach me I've lost my childhood
and I'll never return.
You are destined to be cleared out
to make room for reality and the present.
These artifacts that show me
I have to move on
make me want to collapse
onto my bed
in a fury of dreams of what's to come
to save myself from this moment.
I want to shut my eyes
while my mind unconsciously
connects the puzzle pieces
of what once was
to what is
and completes the empty spots
I've been contemplating.
I want to surrender to sleep
and lose track of the time,
to crawl under my blankets
I was tucked under as a child,
and dream of my future
in a bed where my mind
once swam in simple naivety
and make believe.
One day even this moment
will seem far away and surreal
in the fashion my past does now.
Every moment waits for its turn
to be consolidated into a memory,
then a distant déjà vu.
It waits in line
as it hopes to arrive
sooner than later,
because life is short,
and it would be a shame
to wait forever,
but die before trying out
at an attempt
to be something important enough
to shape who you are.
But time can’t be tamed.
iii – lost
The little red ridges that gave her security,
the comfort in pain: a pure absurdity.
She runs her fingers over her thin maroon lines,
tracing the stripes with chills down her spine,
recounting unknowing hands having touched there
unaware, on that tender spot.
The hugs, the joking pats, the attention taps, the playful punches
that sent out tingling hot,
Yet she runs the blade across again,
over and over and over ‘til her blood runs red.
Thoughts fill her head,
she yearns to live,
the cut: her tangible correction to a life misled.
Her skin cries out,
her lips form a smile
with a breath of expectancy
waiting for relief
the deserved pain brings so protectingly.
The meticulously formed cuts,
the impulsive ones too,
each brought her closer to earth
and things she thought true.
They’re all her mishandled emotions
carried around in human flesh,
still visible long after they’d been fresh.
The healing didn't matter,
for the wound was the only aim.
It was the high of emotion
that only the blade could tame.
Her tears and half smile
accepted the pain
in a manner so deserving,
as she began to draw blood
from the pale scar she’d been reserving.
Her audience - a shot of whiskey, a sad song, and the cold bath tile against her back.
Well aware of the pale white grooves that followed every time,
her grip on the knife did all but slack.
iv – hope
Her eyes are silent but speak volumes,
they shine brighter than ever,
wet with shame,
red with defeat,
damp with sin.
Her body is decorated.
Scarred lines.
Pale marks.
Sit down if you’d like
and she’ll tell you the stories
of these tattoos:
battle wounds of her past,
a battleground of emotional warfare.
It’s healed skin
and a healing heart.
But now standing
in the solemn dirt
where she ponders,
felt failure,
gave up,
she finds that from mistake comes beauty
and sometimes change first requires
being broken to the fullest extent,
but what’s broken
can be made beautiful.
She’s an art piece now,
scarred arms bear a toast,
once frowned lips form the words:
“Here's to living radically
and loving creatively
to achieve change dramatically
and unleash passion abundantly
to walk this earth differently
and show those who live rationally
that success can be an anomaly
when defined worldly.
And even in these moments
when I’m left emaciated, desolate, and destitute,
I’ll be back for more
Because my heart may stop,
but my soul is ceaseless.”
v – happiness
Break out of your soft-shelled shelter of stability
and walk into rough waters
and dark places you once feared.
Refuel your hope
and find your drive.
Learn to love the world you live in.
Realize that living has left your footprints,
an impact on the world that,
no matter how small,
will always remain.
So start shaping your infinity.
One that’s never to be replicated,
one that’ll change the world:
a bottom up dissemination
a below to above revolution,
that in utter silence
or in a loud voice,
that’s ingenious
or simplistic,
that’s invisible
or seen by all,
will be felt like reverberations
throughout the generations
to come.
The human is an artifact
that while withering away over time,
scatters and leaves pieces
in all the places it has been.
Eventually we will retire
and we will expire.
But before then,
don’t simply survive,
learn to be alive.
With the wind in your face
never settle down,
never let your life go to waste.
Run with the wind
and fill your sails
with the next gust that comes along.
Be the token of love
that a young child hands to her mother.
Be a long-awaited gift
given to express gratitude for another.
Be the positive forecast
in a streak of dark, gloomy weather.
Take every utterance of what will happen “one day”
and make today your “one day”.
And when along the way
you forget who you are,
pull out that fluorescent red sticker
saying "hello my name is"
and sharpie in "valuable"
because you are valuable beyond belief.
And look up
into horizons to come
and rise again with the sun.