They said our 20s were supposed to be easy
They never said that i would have to
Count backwards from one hundred to
Curb a breakdown
They said sedation will calm you
Down
But no one ever considered
That my neuroticism is what gave
Me my power to write

No one prepared me for the nights
I dont remember
For the car accidents that happened
But never really happened
The accidents that only existed as scars
On my car
That my splintered mirrors
Only showed a fraction of my illness

I was never supposed to be the person
To leave the party early
Because there was an anomaly in the wallpaper
I was unable to ignore

No one prepares you for the enemies
You make of yourself
Or the holes in your memory
Where your dignity leaks out

I never knew I could tell the time
By counting my tears on my tile floor
And that  springs of my
Bed would twang the sad anthem id never sing

Because i was bloated with
The probability that
My anxiety was
Scrawled on my skin
That my anguish was apparent
And my life floated in a glass
Half empty
And ever-transparent

I believed
No one would want to be with
Someone with so much baggage
I had to check in in order to get on a plane

Ive spent my 20s on the verge of
Implosion
I was never meant to
Crave sterility
And the absence of emotion

What if my mispoken words
Were perfectly aligned
With the trajectory of my life
And that I was meant to
Teach people
Through this story
That even the
“Wrong words come
Out right”

His hand clamped around her wrist,
Held firm beneath the tree.
He inhaled the fresh and warm air,
Smelled the lilac and the sea.

She glanced at him so slyly,
Warm lips curled into a grin.
If only she could tell him,
If only she could win.

When he found her in the corner
She warned him of her sin.
He pulled her from the ground then,
Her once full frame now so thin.

She told him he must leave now,
She pushed, a gentle shove.
His red lips met her chapped ones,
"I'll never leave, my only love."

But just then, two weeks later,
He placed a lily on her grave.
A tear rolled down his dry cheek,
The only one he couldn't save.

Still he sits, beneath the tree now,
Smells the lilacs and the sea.
She's just a whisper in the wind now,
"But the only whisper that's for me."

And a woman who held a babe against her ***** said, "Speak to us of
Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you
with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that
is stable.