When the tide comes in
the tide holds back
for
no man
no woman
no child.

It keeps on rising.
You're going to get your feet wet first
your ankles are next
but
it's not stopping there
your legs and thighs
your stomach too
as
panic
starts to set in.

Your will won't stop it
Your prayers won't stop it
Your love won't even slow it down.

Ego disintegrates immediately
but that tide still rolls on in.

Some will try to hold on like
flags in the rising waters
some will swim
others will run
some passively will perish.

This tide, like change, will not recede
and those that survive
are those that ran to higher ground
as the water receded from the land
for they
knew exactly what it was
they were seeing.

We are monuments.
Every one of us.
I see before me,
men, women and children
and each one of us is a pillar
upon which entire worlds were built.
Too often do I find this innate sense of guilt,
that stems from not becoming
what we should have been.
I've seen opera singers sell their vocal chords
and take up vows of silence.
I've seen warriors give up the art of violence
and become holy men.
I suppose everything will fall in doubt,
now and then.
But we are pillars,
built to hold up things bigger than ourselves.
If any single one of us fails,
our whole house grows weaker.

This is the place we have been given,
to walk upon and live in.
Each one of it's valleys and peaks
and ditches and creeks
has heard the voice that speaks
of humanity.
Our impact upon this land is timeless.
Yet it seems that yesterday's graveyards,
will become today's sandboxes
until they are tomorrow's graveyards.

We are the pillars that hold up the sky,
we will all stand and we will all fall,
without really knowing why,
but the morale of every story
is hidden behind the words
like the forest behind the trees.
I know we all have memories
but these,
these are for you.
Even if all they ever do
is get you through this one day
then that have paved the way
for tomorrow.
That's all you can ask for, really,
is tomorrow.
One day, we will be denied.

Funny how a small success
can make a large struggle
seem worthwhile.

The struggle pushes on your body
like the thousands of pounds of air pressure we endure every moment, adapted since birth when we were exposed to the atmosphere for the first time.

We've adapted so much. It feels like nothing at all.

And such is the struggle, a gradual acceptance,
until one accidental success -

a perfectly carved moment of zen designed to seal one crack in our exterior, to smooth an otherwise rough outline of the idea of your person.

One crack we didn't know was there until we look more closely.


And suddenly - we see - !


Are we made up of billions of cracks,
of shattered thoughts and ideas,
dreams and plans and places and bandaids over the wounds that never really healed?

Are we scarred beneath the flattened affect of the I'mFines and the Don'tWorries?

What a shock, then, when you finally discover the one smooth graft in your otherwise undetectably shattered self.

Oh! The elation!

One small, well-placed celebration
The seed of a new foundation

Can you declare a body unfit for inhabitance?
It's time for total renovation.