I
For the best time to learn how to swim is when you are drowning,
The right moment to live is when you feel you’re dying,
Be not afraid of the unfamiliar, of uncertainties,
That are disguised in forms of hundreds of questions and opportunities.

II
The life we live is a series of narratives,
Of wins, of losses, of growing seeds and falling leaves.
Be prepared for plot twists and guest characters,
As your role will change from each time and thereafter.

III
You will feel happiness and other emotions from time-to-time,
Things that will puzzle you and leave you wondering where’s the rhyme,
All I can say is take comfort in fleeting times you’re feeling lost,
For it only means you know where you want to go -- a destination you’re about to cross.

IV
The uncharted waters might feel unsafe, risky, and sketchy,
Tread them carefully as on the other side are liberties.
Anxious? Stressed? Or perhaps startled and confused?
These are feelings signalling evolution that are being put to use.

V
Be excited to the places you will go and people you will meet.
Give everything, a wave, a smile, a meaningful greet!
You are destined to meet the You’s who are just about to be,
Greatness and possibilities are just some of what you are to see.

VI
Regrets will be in place as they will always be part of this epic,
The ones which will hurt the least on your deathbed must be the ones picked.
Remember that a day in your life when you will ask yourself questions will come,
I wish that you’d be able to answer and forgive yourself for everything you didn’t become.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

Words as solid objects
take the shape of moving air
if intention could be felt through skin
what protection would one wear?

Thoughts are heavy objects
to speak them is relief
but the burden collects like leaden dust
around the listener’s feet.

The mind creates these objects
it thinks but cannot speak
and as these objects fill its space
they become the speaker, me.

Is love like
flipping a coin
Or water-flowing
Or electrons going
Only one direction
Possible at a time

©  2017 Jim Davis