I believe in what we have on this Earth,
what we were taught to covet as children
but not to love, at least not to love it enough,
because the stuff that we hold in our small tender hands
contains the sands of the hourglass that will bring change
to the world, that will rearrange the future to the way we see fit,
and when we've finally found what "it" is for each one of us,
that "it" that we hold so dear, the one thing we are told
that we have, but that we may not hear or see or feel,
but we can love,
that is what I believe in.
I do not see a God watching us,
or a demon plaguing us with filth and sin.
I do not see a God who is with us through thick and thin
or tells us what to place our trust in
because that is within us, trying to come out,
trying to finally be free from society
that has stifled it so. Even through piety
and faith, which is a word that I've heard
so much it's lost all meaning to me,
people will lose their inner voice,
their heart that beats with the sound of an infant's cry,
their brain that tells them why they try so hard to know
all that they can, their legs that carry them forward,
and their wings that fly them there even faster,
and when that goes,
then you have nothing to believe in.
But I can hear my voice,
and I am no God, I am no supreme being
whose will is law, that is not my job,
that is rightfully the job of every one of us,
a sentient democracy, even though it is no democracy,
for in such a system you cannot hear your own voice
amongst the billions of others, your brothers
and sisters and fathers and mothers
who may not know you,
but all share something in common.
We all believe in what we have on this Earth,
to some degree, some solemn singularity
that is not singular, some point of view
that is not angular, some déjà vu
that is not irregular, and we hold on tight
to the prospect of a light at the end of the tunnel
through which we fly with no end in sight
and we don't stop to ask why,
we just keep going.
I believe in what we have on this Earth,
I believe in futures and education and the Internet,
just think, we have built ourselves the Internet,
filled with endless promise that may scare some
but we can all share our forward consciousness,
flying along the inside of the tunnel
like zeros and ones, telling us yes
or no, stop or go, think or know,
but there is so much more.
We have enough knowledge to make maps
of the gaps in our universe, where only
several billion stars reside,
each with exponential potential
for there to be so much more
than what we can see with our eyes,
than the farthest reaches of our voice
in the infinite size of the universe we call home
which we think we own but we know we don't,
because while there is doubt,
there is so much more.
That is what we should be taught to love
as children, so that from day one, when we look
to heaven above and see nothing, and we climb
the highest mountain and sigh
because we see nothing,
and we finally fly out the end of our tunnel
and we cry because we still see nothing,
we can know that what we see
does not limit our mind, only our eyes,
and how far or how high has no end,
and while we can search for the way
to perch ourselves upon the apex of the universe,
wherever that may lie, there will come a day
when what we believe in becomes what we have,
something we can hold in our small tender hands.
We must never lose sight of that day. We must
fly to the light at the end of the tunnel, we must
beam out our voices in zeros and ones, we must
search for our "it" in every corner of existence, we must
learn and teach and pass things on to our futures,
we must never forget what seems gone,
because we will know everything stays with us,
and we must never, for as long as we can love
and look up and say the delicious word "sentience,"
we must never stop believing in what we have on this Earth,
because there is so much more.