O life
That force that draws dependent
On nothing yet on everything
The good and evil, confused and enlightened
It moves through us as light shining through the clouds
That darkens our outlook
The stars vanish as the sky's light fades
No longer can we reach further, jump higher
The bay's light snuffed by nature
No color, no green, but grey
As muted as the circumstance of silence
Where one's own thoughts are not quieted, but amplified
The inverse of the typical pattern
Where as the noise outside increases, the thoughts within become clouded
Thoughts like stars, once visible now invisible
Absorbed by the grey
Overtaken by the grey
Gone
Replaced with the noise from outside
A small town replaced by chain stores
A young mind replaced by no mind
A people replaced by a nation
Stars and stripes, vivid and billowing
Real yet ethereal
The stripes' colors run across the fabric of the flag
Confined only by the end of the fabric
by this binary reality
Without this confine they would run forever
Like a stream
Like a stream of consciousness
a visualization of the confines that bind us
The shackles we fight
The irons we drag, day in and day out
Our symbols, our world are governed by laws
And we struggle to break them
To understand them
To exist is an act of civil obedience
to prosper as an act of disobedience
We develop
we create
we imagine
we inspire
we think
we critique
we wonder
We live in limbo
Questioning our very purpose
As we feel the driving force within us
Push us to disobey the laws that govern us
To prosper or to fall
To pass or to fail
Eden was a place of perfection
designed to nurture us
to allow us to prosper through adherence to rules
But we cannot prosper without disobedience
It is what compels us to live and learn
It is what comprises the very essence of us
We could not live there
But we cannot live here
We are nomads of existence
Travelers on an endless journey
We find ways to amuse ourselves
Inventing distractions and novelties
Most bittersweet
They are tokens of our achievement
Designed to take the place of indicators of progress
for an endless journey has no mid-way point
No end
Just a beginning
I called to life:
What shall I do?
What shall I be?
I am a cynic
I exclaimed with true heart and soul
That this advancement
These tokens
are meaningless
That they are not the panacea to our problems
They are the parasite that ails us
I urged
I begged
I cried
I felt that ideas were dead
No chivalry towards the mind

I have changed

Our journey has no end, only beginning
There are no good days
No bad days
In the grander scope there is nothing
But in that same way
there is everything
With every token we craft to celebrate our achievements
We huddle together, a group of beings alone in an endless timeline
Moving forth ceaselessly
But together
With one another
Defending against threats
Celebrating against boredom

O life
That force that remains dependent yet independent
Interdependent
Moving through us, connecting us
Bringing us together
Forming our humanity
The only thing we have and the best thing we have
A path embellished by us
Luster none surpassed

No despair may conquer us
No reality may threaten us
Life is the lantern in the dark
that beckons us.

O, life.
You exist for all but are visible to only some
You leave us pondering, wondering, yet living as one.