Poetry.

I worked for everything I dreamed of -

Young, with much deserved pride.

Achievement by achievement,

I found a hollowness inside

From fulfilling all these hopes that weren’t really mine.

I did everything the way I was taught I should

And realized how misguided this structured world stood.

The little chaos in me that I thought was my curse

Held the answer to my freedom - putting myself first.

•••

I remember a time when I was invincible.

The more knowledge my tumbling brain rolled over

The more inflated my ego became -

With anger, hatred, hostility.

How comical it is that?

I now know the most I have ever known

And I realize what I know is nothing.

Life - such a beautiful experience of complexity and fullness,

Simultaneously, nothingness and emptiness.

The grounding pain propels change and growth

And the brief touches of happiness keep us alive and human.

It is equally magical as it is heavily painful.

•••

There is victory in my views

And my acceptance of life’s temperament.

As I made my mindset flexible,

I opened my heart to happiness

and my mind, to peace.

May I be unapologetically audacious

Mentally, spiritually, emotionally -

Because change begins within

And progress starts with me.

This world needs my light

That incandescently exudes

From my fiery soul

To soften the hardest hearts

In a way that softness becomes

The new way.

The right way.

The only way.