My New Year's Poem

1- 1-12 - 2013

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." ~ Emerson

I’d like to think I’m getting better at living through the years.
As each one passes, I’ve surmounted a few more fears
and left behind some tendencies to get tangled up in gears
that slow down my clock and bring little more than tears.

By focusing on my goals and their respective causes,
I’ve found a source of stability between the loves and losses.
It’s offered me a strength that I use to my advantage,
as I try to live with grace, while incurring minimal more damage.

This isn’t about perfection or even being better than others,
but a belief that you and I are only as good as our gutters,
as our weaknesses and flaws constantly stabbing us in the back
like a city that's being flooded by its very own crap.

It’s a tricky thing we’re given when we’re handed the controls,
of a life others half built and may have blindly filled with holes.
Like landmines in our foundation, or a blueprint full of errors,
and we pick up where they left off amongst the comedy of terrors.

Yet we’re expected to make it work like we all know what we’re doing,
like the world has a use for us that we are knowledgeably pursuing.
But for most it would seem we’re all searching for a light
to illuminate the room with the best parts of life.

It’s safe to say where that room is, we’ve heard it all our lives
as we busy our dizzy selves like desperate houseflies,
from the mouths of our greatest minds and the stories they have told,
to the remarkably simple truths spoken by our young and old.

“You have to look within,” they say, “til you’re not afraid of what you see,
because every time you look away…you lose sight of the enemy.
The only one who can hold you down and keep you from becoming
everything you’ve ever dreamed, without the slightest bit of cunning,

just the goodness of love, along with a beautiful faith
that you weren’t put here to be a victim on behalf of the human race.
That there is more to you than this, whatever this is,
just as there is more to love than a lust for hugs and kisses.

To never stop digging deeper like you’re searching for a bullet
that could be infecting parts of your life with x amounts of bullshit.”
This is what they say to the rest of us, who are as clever as cartoons,
always expecting to get better, without putting pressure on the wounds.

~

This is what I saw growing up, and I’d be damned if I followed suit,
so I broke my pact with the devil, and threw the bible down the chute.
I accepted no one’s answers but the ones I found myself,
and began to pay attention to the thoughts that filled my shelf.

I found that many were not my own, and few were even true,
like my perceptions had been catered by a society with the flu
and a sickness had been spreading that was simply called ‘The Norm’:
once it got its pound of flesh, you were bound to be deformed.

So I resolved to make a change, protect whatever I was
from a world that sought to make me accept whatever it does
as gospels and love and the way things ought to be,
like I can’t tell the difference between truth and falsity.

This was all disturbing, but I found a place inside
where I could be myself and I didn’t have to hide
how much I really loved to live or what made me feel alive,
and in this place I found my art…and that’s when I began to thrive.


 I didn’t think I was good at anything for the better part of my life,
but my writing made that line of thinking slow and then it jackknifed.
I felt like I really had something, and it was incredibly fun,
but I also incessantly doubted myself and was incredibly dumb.

I didn’t have the confidence to do what I needed to do,
and never felt the freedom to follow my dreams through.
Eventually I let it all go, because I didn’t believe in myself.
How often do we squander our unvalued wealth?

However, as you see, that’s not the end of this story,
and I have managed to reclaim a bit of my former glory,
and have put it to good use in some interesting ways
that make my life feel like a ship aptly called, “To Better Days.”

There’s a place for my art in the world that I didn’t see before.
It was there all along, but I was blind to the door
and no one seemed to notice my stumbling potential,
so I figured I was kidding myself thinking this was special.

It was my favorite thing in the world and I treated it like a hobby,
told myself to forget my dreams, and that betrayal was ungodly.
It broke my spirit and made me hate all that I was.
My art atrophied in self-loathing.  My big bang became a blasé buzz.

But it never went away, it just got very very quiet,
like I went from flyin planes, to a desk job at the Hyatt.
The itch was always there to get back into the air
but I had to spend my days acting like I didn’t care.

I was a fool to stop it and to think it could be stopped.
All I did was hang an anvil that would naturally be dropped
on my dumbfounded head almost ten years later,
and the force knocked so much sense, it turned my skull into a crater.

Now I write every day, I am happy to report!
Whether poems thoughts or songs, even essays and letters
the words won’t stop coming out! But…long story short,
as time passed and brought experience, I broke free from my fears,
and slowly found my way back into the stratosphere.

It may not always be great and I’m rarely very technical,
but I enjoy what I make and performing is a spectacle
that I can’t believe I’m a part of, it was once a “wildest dream.”
And now every chance I get makes my inner child scream

with the joy of Christmas presents or a great birthday surprise.
I’ve reached a place in life where all the blessings are undisguised.
And I can’t believe the fortune I had in my hands all this time!
Who knew you could make life better…just by making rhymes?

The power of a purpose is that of a resounding call,
calling everyone who heard it to take that leap despite the fall.
I’ve heard mine loud and clear now, but it was there all along,
and I do not think I’m alone in that. I think we all have a song

that we are meant to sing, that would tell you where you belong,
so you can live without the constant, crippling fear of being wrong.
Because none of that matters, not one judgment is eternal.
The system is designed so you can escape any inferno,

from the one in your head, to the violence you feel and see,
but whether you go up or down is up to you entirely.
You sow the seeds of your future, or you let them be sown,
but whatever you end up with is only yours to own. 

The world is a crazy place, no doubt. Of this, we’re well aware.
Some are born in opportunity, while others in despair.
And while that might make some dreams far-fetched, greatness is always possible.
The abominable only exist as long as allowed by the indomitable.

~

  At this point, all I hope for is to become more of what I am,
to better my self, and if I can, to help my fellow man.
Because I know something of his struggle, I’ve been on both sides,
but you’ll find me smilin in the middle now, cuz I know it’s just a ride.

I cannot ask for much more from life (if you could only see what I’ve been given),
but I see how much more can be done with the storyline I’m livin,
so I try to bend it in more alignment with the universe’s laws,
so I may do that work much longer. God willing, Insh’Allah. 

_