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Allie Billman

If you don't learn to write your own story, someone else will write it for you

36 poems·Since July 2015
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Awesome Isn’t Everything

August 7, 2015

What does awesome mean to you?

When you think of awesome

You think of that great big success

You think of acing that end-of-year test

We think of celebrations and parties

And being our best

Yet around the world people don't get food everyday

Much less celebrations

Or music to play

Kids worry about where they are going to sleep

They don't have any possessions to hold or to keep

Hungry babies just two or three

Kids just as old as you and me

They run the family

And scavenge for food

But these are things you and I don't have to do

We eat three meals a day

And come home to our beds

We don't have to worry about a roof over our heads

That is why awesome to me isn't some beautiful sight

It's not some thrill ride that gives me a fright

Awesome is just the way I live every day

It’s the things I do

The words I say

The choices I get

And the breaths I breathe

These are important to me

This is the awesome that so many don't know

They have too many struggles to pull and tow

They don't have anything awesome to show

I could tell the story of some crazy dream

Or the time I found that one special thing

But instead I will tell you something that is true

What’s awesome are the basic things I can do

I'm glad that I can sleep in a bed

Much less paint my nails or dye my hair red

I’m overjoyed that I have a place to live

Much less having gifts to get or to give

I'm delighted to go to school every day

Forget about chores or having bills to pay

I’m ecstatic I have a family that cares

Forget having things that I need to share

Yes there are things I love and hate

But I don't have to worry about when I last ate

Maybe you work long hours or your homework stinks

But are you so hungry you can't even think?

Have you ever been so thirsty you couldn’t move?

Have you ever been without a single pair of shoes?

For us, everything is awesome

But awesome isn’t everything

Some people have too much

Some have nothing

And yet we don’t try and change this

We say it’s just aimless

So what will you do?

Let me ask you again

What does awesome mean to you?

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