Eighteen years.
Eighteen long years I've lived on this planet,
Slaving away as another conformist to most rules
(But only so I could survive
And get an education, despite the breakdowns
As my mind couldn't handle the pressure
Of today's expectations).
At times I thought I wouldn't make it;
My lows were... pretty low;
They sometimes cancelled out the highs completely,
Or at least made them seem not so high.
But somehow, I made it,
Along with all the other eighteen-year-olds.
And so I say, congratulations.
We made it.
We may be beaten, bruised, and battered,
Broken, cracked, and frayed,
But we're here.
Brace yourselves.
We're in for a whole new set of challenges.

If you believe you are worthless,
You are wrong.
Ask your friends and family—
Ask the ones around you.
They’ll be able to tell you
At least a little
Of how you’ve influenced them.
Maybe talking to you
Brightens their day.
Maybe they come to you
For advice.
Maybe you provide
That critical listening ear.
Maybe your smile
Puts them at ease.
Maybe you have brilliant ideas
That remind them to discard The Box.
I speak of all these Maybes,
But I leave it up to you
To find out exactly how
You’re needed
You’re wanted
You’re loved
You have worth.
Write them down.
Look at them again and again
When you’re hovering in the Void.
Maybe it won’t bring you out,
But maybe it’ll keep you
From falling further.

If trees could speak,
What would they say?
Could they recount the tales
Of all who crashed
Under their boughs?
Do they keep a list—
Even make it a game—
Of how many cars pass
Per day, per week, per decade?
Do they remember
Each fallen brethren,
Move to catch them
When they fall?
Do they have rivalries
About the biggest size
Or the best patch of soil
Or the most growing seeds—
Or are they past all that
And the weeping willows
Took it upon themselves
To weep for us humans
Who distinguish between
Small insignificances?

There's a room full of vases
And each one is different.
Some have cracks,
Others, fractures;
Some have crumbled,
Others, shattered;
Some have different colours
In a patchwork pattern.
Some look whole and well
But only from a distance;
Others' cracks are so fine
Only the vase can tell it's broken.
But each vase is beautiful.
Each vase can be useful,
Be patched up and hold something.
This room full of vases
Appears sad to some,
But it is also
Brimming with life.

Dogs roam the streets,
Scraping out a meager living
From the scraps thrown out of windows.
There is a house
In the middle of all the others.
In this house
Lives a man,
A man who watches the dogs,
Tosses them food
So that they would not starve.
At times he approaches a dog,
Talks gently and soothingly—
Though he can rebuke them harshly,
But only if need be—
And he will invite the dog into his home,
But the dog has the final say.
The dogs decide whether to follow
And even when to leave.
But the man is patient.
He will wait as long as necessary.
At times he will change his tactics
And send some of his dogs out
To mingle with the wild ones.
His dogs proudly wear the collars he gave them.
They befriend the wild dogs,
Sometimes ostentatiously flashing the collar,
Sometimes just wearing it
Until another dog shows interest.
At night they return to the man’s house,
Curl up by his fire,
Full from his bread and wine.
And sometimes, a wild dog
Will follow one of the man’s dogs home.
There are dogs who leave the house
And never return.
There are dogs who fashion a collar
Similar to the ones the man makes
And they wear it
And say they are of the man’s home,
But they are no more
Than the wild dogs among whom they live.
However, the man is patient.
He forgives them.
He still tosses them food,
Still heals them,
Still speaks gently,
Still awaits the day
When the join him in his home.

I want to write something deep and poetic
About the fireworks I saw.
But all I can come up with
Is the physical attributes—
The seeing that I did,
The hearing that I did,
The feeling that I did,
The experiencing that I did.
Red comets shot upward
In a slight arcing path
To explode in brilliant light
And rain down upon the spectators.
There’s a hush of anticipation in the audience
Between the moment they notice
The curling smoke trail,
The breathtaking visual display,
And the slightly delayed KERPOW
As the firework’s sound
Finally makes its way through the air.
Each exploding fragment
Fizzles through the air with a quiet hissing,
Competing with the screeching
Of the next firework going up.
It’s almost kind of sad:
Each firework aims for the sky,
Reaches as high as it can go,
Leaving behind bits of itself as it does so,
But hits some invisible ceiling—
Some fireworks’ ceilings
Are higher than others—
And that is their maximum.
They can take no more,
They cannot reach the sky,
They cannot reach the stars,
They cannot reach their brethren,
And so they explode in their sadness or anger;
But in doing so,
They light the way for others.

She danced with death.
At times they would wait on opposite sides of the room,
Stealing glances of each other around the other guests.
At others, they would stand so close
Their breath intermingled like the winds in the trees.
They held each other gently,
Both afraid to hold too hard
And have the other shatter into scattered fragments.
They would twirl and sidestep gracefully,
Making others yearn to watch
Yet afraid to do so, for doing so
Might upset the magical balance they’d set up.
And so the two dance on—
Waltzes, tangos, ballets,
Separating briefly to catch their breath
And to let the tension build from across the room.