red and yellow leaves
geese and swallows flying home
time for me to go

"Why don't you just put that down and work on your essays?"
"You know what Mom? Why don't I just drop everything I love?
Why don't I just become a stick straight, porcelain calculating and writing machine
With perfectly brushed blonde hair and blue eyes
Why don't I just become perfect-
Perfect-
(Broken record)
Perfect-"

A big tree in street
Full of green and golden leaves
Dances in cool breeze

We few, poorly oiled machines,
Working sixty hour weeks from age 16
Our sunburns as much a part of us as our high school transcripts
You can read us by sun stains on our skin
The places our burns peeled and left scars
We are not unlucky
I recieved a scholarship to an honors school
But I have to work for the rest of the tuition.
I have to work, so I miss pedicures and dinner dates
I'll take my notebook with me
I'll study on the walk home in the pouring rain if I have to
I have to work
People keep telling me that we all just want the world handed to us
I am halfway up the wall just grasping at the rope to climb
I am as privaleged as I'd like to be and still understand that
I have to work
I have to prove to you that I can contribute to the society holding my spine straight and my shoulders up
We lovely few insomniacs
Who will still be at practice in the morning
At work at night
And turn in an A- paper on time the next day
We are just getting to bed now
The alarm goes off in two hours and that's alright
We'll do what we have to and we'll love what we do
Life was not engineered to be a vacation. Nobody is holding our hands and we do not miss the hotel pool.

Autumn hit us like a truck
Our 90 degree race was promptly followed by days of 40 degree practice
Our elbows chaffing against our shirts, nevertheless grateful for the rest,
The shelter from the humidity
I don't think I was actually breathing as I crossed the threshold of the second lap of our three mile loop
In some odd twist of fate, I'll be running in the varsity semifinals next week
As my lungs tried to tear themselves from my chest, I tried to remind myself that this wasn't my first run
I've had six months of slamming my heels into the ground, just like every other ******* this trail
I heave every time someone passes me
I think, "Just one more deep breath and I will cross that line,"
I think that my height is betraying me and my joints are grinding to a painful halt
I think that I am still moving.

Never give a blind man this power
For he will use it for evil
Causing thousands in their youthful flower
To only strive for one purpose

For when afflicted by his poison puncture
No longer do they move onward
They are assured, convinced by a sound structure
That they must keep climbing one tree

Did any of them reach their destination?
What branch did they wish to climb to?
Were they forced by intense fascination?
Why do they no longer explore?

A summation must be made to explain
my answer

They have become polarized by sunny seams
The top of the tree is so close
Yet continuing the tree with glowing gleams
Grows far above their tiny heads

So then they sit and wait in the tree
On a branch they stay for days, months, even YEARS
for one purpose

And they all wonder the same question
Is it dedication to simply compromise and go with the growth
or is it hopeless, and meaningless?

The answer to the question
I do not know
But there is one thing evident
Cupid uses only one arrow
And never misses his mark