It is time, from hearth and home to depart,
For you to fill your pack, shoulder your load,
To walk alone now that gray wintry road;
Where you will wander I can have no part,
Before you leave you shall cut from my heart
The brotherhood which we together sowed
Gath’ring from ours what you feel you are owed
Making of our end your own fresher start.
I cannot fault you for this your hard choice,
No more than I can follow where you go,
But if I may here one thing only stress
From halls now absent your echoing voice
Let it be this: always trust, ever know
That daily I’ll pray the Lord you to bless.

The trenches are empty only full of fear and sorrow

The pit gets deeper everyday
Their is no sleep in the belly of the beast where all your dreams are swallowed

Looking threw the window of opportunity in days that feel they'll never see tomorrow

Clarity shows it's face in chaos like pain shows life to those grown numb

For the world will try to break your spirit we either fight or die in a battle never won.

He said
"It’s ok to be strange, but not too strange"
And over the years it has never left me

Because apparently, people can appreciate your “uniqueness”
But only in small doses
And if that is so, then why bother at all?
You can’t take a piece of someone and call it a whole

The good and the bad that resides in all of us
Is something we have to accept wholeheartedly
It's our humanity

There is a madness in all of us
A darkness
Just the same
As our will to live
As our happiness

Being loved in bits and pieces is torture
It's not just wanting to change for someone
Trying to be what they want you to be

It's hating yourself for not being right to begin with
It's feeling inadequate
It's worries and doubts pouring over you like a thick sludge

It's wishing you could hate that person discarding those unsightly pieces of you
And not being able to

Some people don't see the pain they cause
Because they've become numb to their own pain
And have gotten tired of waiting
Waiting their whole lives for someone to see them as a whole

All it takes is one step forward
Steady and sure
And one resonating acknowledgement:

"It's ok to be yourself"

So that our hearts may flourish

This Jellyfish that floats along
trying to confidently stay strong
is distinctly sad, so often it feels like
it could just sting itself,
but it does *not.

It floats along.