The Path Only I Have Traversed

Take a moment and think

28800 times a day we blink

28800 memories a day we miss

Irrecoverable, lost in life’s abyss

The maddening rants of our elders

Whose words stored away in cellars

Incomprehensible for our juvenile ears

Imperceptible how ignorance grinded their gears

“I see you young bull running around with no care

Holding your chest high suffering from a lack of ‘fear’

But I have been in your shoes you’re heading nowhere

You’re on a path with a vision that is not clear

You think you’re grown because you hang in the streets

Until you receive that reality check

One if your own is resting easy under the sheets”

Granted losing someone is not a part of my story

But I’d be lying if I said I did not fall in the same category

Of kids who did not heed the words of the wise

Being an adult was far different than what was advertised

I thought I gained a sense of maturity when I went away for high school

Coexisting with individuals who used to provided me powerful jewels

Whose value appreciated as if it were aged in a prestigious winery

And those who took the premature sip had the devil utter finally

Falling into the lights and glamour of a fantastical scene

I was slipping in life, to make matters worse I was only nineteen

Rushing the process as if adulthood was not ever so close

Looking back on it I should have known better I suppose

Because college was only a step up from what I have been through

But I guess life got tired and decided to make his proper debut

So in the winter of sophomore year

With an emptiness in the atmosphere

He placed his hand on my shoulder

Looked me in my face and stated

“Young man. You are out of here.”

I never witnessed such a stretch of my life

Where I felt as if nothing was going right

The lack of employment was a problem on its own

But nothing was worse than being stuck at home

I lacked the resources to do as I pleased

The countless nights of asking why me

For the first time in my career I understood

The struggles my mom constantly endured

The perseverance it takes day in and day out

To at least keep the dream alive of making it out

The countless hours I spent hustling for a dollar

The extra effort, slowly I was feeling empowered

Is this what the elders of my past described?

That moment of adulthood had finally arrived?

Where true priorities arise

And time has a tendency to fly

Every moment I am apart of I make sure to embrace

Because it is the lowest of lows that allow you to appreciate

The life that one has, you truly cannot replicate

And while failure is necessary you must exfoliate

A powerful woman once reminded me

“You must stop and smell the roses”

Because in those moments

You might discover your motive

But remember take your time to grasp

Blink too fast and it could be gone in a flash

So take a moment and think

28800 times a day we blink

28800 opportunities we miss

Irrecoverable, lost forever

In life’s abyss…