To the bright shiny people with a radiant glow,
I'd say this one's for you,
but you already know.
And so, this is for the others:
The battered and bruised.
The broken in shambles;
distraught and abused.
Those who think that they make no difference.
I'm here to acknowledge your existence.
This one is for you.

The world can be cruel -
known to deal a bad hand,
but you've still got to bet,
and play the best that you can.
It's better than just sitting at the table
as a cynical, do-nothing, always complaining and then
criticizing those who take part in the action.

You hate others because you hate yourself.
You're hopeless because they've got you convinced that you're living in hell.
"I can't do anything right," says the self-loathing pessimist.
You can't change the facts that make up your past,
but the fact is that you can always change your future.
There's hope for you yet.
No longer will you deny your own happiness.
You deserve it simply because you exist.

Did we not all squirm and twist our way to the ****
to get there first so we could worm our way in?
Naturally,
no one remembers any of this,
but it had to have happened because otherwise
we would not exist.
Not as we are now -
not how we've always been -
so I say raise your fist in celebration of that initial victory.

Even if you haven't won one since.
Even if you feel bogged down by misery,
it only means that you've let yourself temporarily forget that it's miracle at all that you even exist.
You're a part of it all just because you are there.
So I ask of the forgetful,
the indifferent,
the scared.
How can you not see the beauty?
How can you not care?