Twenty Four Hours

They say, I've made mistakes yet I am not made of them

They say I am made of the same materials stars are

Most days I am a concoction of rough edges and smooth sand

Experiences and contradictions

Who I am is conglomerate

I am part of the apocalypse generation

We are fighters. We have survived raptures and doomsday-declaring Mayan calendars

And with ever bright eyes and young lungs we scream that the key to survival is adaptation

So who I am today will not be who I am tomorrow

Some days I am sand and roughness glued together by the pressure of definitions

Some days I am a burr caught in the tangles of my sheets

Some days I am the wild grass you cut down only to have grow back stronger

But some days I am much more than that

Planets do not wait until 12 A.M. to be born and the stars do not set a date on the calendar to explode

Time is money, they say. Time is lucrative and one day I will have enough diamonds to encrust on a golden watch

A ticking reminder that my new twenty-four hour day can start whenever I please

I do not have to wait for the hands to tell me so

These hands have never held a gun

But I would shoot every last star down from the sky

To start a new day with them as my countless suns

They say, show me who you are when nobody is watching and I will show you who you are

Who I was used to be faintly illuminated by the only light I let into my bedroom

The kind that filters faintly through rain-stained windows, dust sprinkled blinds, and curtains that haven't been drawn

Since I realized I could never paint my pain well enough to ever be an artist

We spend so much time wishing on a certain sunrise we fail to realize it may never come if we don't create it ourselves

Well

There's so much light it must be daybreak now

And I'm alone in the starlight glow when my heart begins to whisper

Who I am is not what they say

Who I am is me, right now creating light to begin each day

And every new day absolutely everything will change

Yet every day I will be more me than I have ever been