Bravery is not a trait to be learned,
but a decision that's yet to be made.
When standing against overwhelming odds
there's good reason to be afraid,

but despair does not ensure cowardice
and adversity does not equal defeat.
Every man still has a fighting chance
as long as his heart still beats.

Be always valiant and forever fearless
against what others may forewarn,
because the decisions made amidst catastrophe
are also when heroes are born.

I wanna be able to unleash you
dauntlessly.
Because I trust that you will return back home
to me.

Fear.
For so long, I let it sink its tainted fangs into my neck, drawing blood that dripped to my ankles like something that could make angels tremble in the heavens.
It listened to me speak. I could see the hunched curvature of its spine in every corner of my imagination, watched it swallow the colors of my soul like leftover soup.
Consuming.
It surrounded me, an anchor tethering my heels to hollow ground.


But then I discovered poetry. I discovered the syllabic freedom of bleeding love into the spines of empty journals. I found out that poetry existed in glistening foreheads and moments spent trying to catch my breath again, in split ends and blotted lipstick stains.
I discovered that airplanes do not plummet into the Atlantic Ocean as often as I thought. I discovered that I can ride them without becoming another muted headline, a tragic statistic blaring into the white noise of late night television.
I discovered that my voice had meaning, that it deserved the embrace of a microphone, an eager audience, to be shouted and sung like lyrics to a revolution I had always been taught to silence.
I discovered that proving people wrong is fun.
To the boy who told me at age 13 that I would grow up and become someone’s biggest disappointment, this one is for you. To the despair that kept me wide awake until mornings I wished would be my last, this one is for you. To the same girl who doubted that she would make it, that her brain would ever stop screaming the same addictive chemicals that questioned her very fragile existence, this one is for you.


I made it.
I dyed my hair bright red because I am a fire that refuses to die out, my heartbeats fanning the flames of a life I have yet to conquer. I sing in the shower, with my car windows rolled down at fifty miles per hour, in my sleep. I have tasted tenderness in the form of a heart that beats for mine.  I am loved, I am young, and I am burning fearlessness with every breath.

Who gonna stop me from praising,

Your worried bout what they gonna say while I'm chopping like Jason,

Taking that leap of faith man I'll die for this,

I rather that then to die by the pits,

Y'all thinking bout clowns
while we're clowning around,


Y'all thinking bout shooting while we getting the bounds,  


365 times my lord  said fear nothing,  

So I'ma keep going in while
these boy's still buggin,
  
Now they're banging on the window,

Demon's trying to get me I'ma hit em with this info,  

With protection like this ain't no need to fear anything,  

The devil trying to get us but we gonna hit him with a solid swing,

It takes 5 seconds to take a leap of faith and be fearless.
And then those 5 seconds change your outlook on life forever.

Once was a man just a young boy,
He threw and he drew in the lost playgrounds,
Here is where people met,
They collected stories and secrets that they kept,
It was a vast field of majesty,
All who ever walked on its paths never ceased to live,
But only few have ever died,

Ceasing to exist while the heart still beats,
Breathing softly and surely until their presence turns to mist.
He,
He was one of the few,
He tried to save the tiny compassion left inside a rotten dew,
But alas he was in turn corrupted by the nectar of its dark and creepy hue.
He forgot what it meant,
What it took,
And what it is to be real,
Concrete and strong as steel,
Burning with a passionate spirit of Courage,

With succession he twisted and he toiled,
Ramming the hills of the land and crashing into it's mountains,
There he presumed a title that was astounding for the sound that it makes,
Fearless,
Fearless are we,
Fearless are they,
Fearless with no light,
To embrace the dark fully,
Here his spirit lies,
And his spirit decays,
Never to see a more shaded day,
Brimming with a look that shines more dull each way,

Each way he went it was just mere,
Utter,
Non-sense,
Never was a day that was bland as that,
Until that fateful eve,
Where only downfall would rise with the Sun,
Alongside the humming of the Moon,
Where the cosmic embodiment of Death soon became,

Paranoia juices flowed into place,
For whispers of deceit foul the mortality of the brain,
Corroding the mind until it took him away,
That was the night,
Where one of his deaths took stage,
That was where,
He should have been brave,
To face all in his mind,
And to follow the whispers that were holier than you or than I,
Because that was the end,
*Of the truth on his plane.

teach me youth,

the way it fumbles down spiral staircases
and flutters in late summer wind,
how it forgets the existence of time
as if preserved in fear
like fireflies pounding tirelessly against the walls of our trembling hands on August evenings

for I have forgotten it,
the look--
eyes overcast and words crossing their arms
because they have grown too fearful
of making a mess, the shy first kisses of  tangled hair and secrecy.

teach me how to dance
with aimless feet, stumbling
as if light can only pass through
the opacity of hardened hearts
with the soft brush of innocence
that somehow neglected to paint you brand new.

Contrary to popular belief, I am not always a happy person. I am not made of summer sunshine and daffodils and constantly feeling limitless. I am not a cartoon character on the screen of a static television that can only ever showcase one emotion, laughing away humble hours and only ever blushing out of joy. There are days when my skin is the last place I want to live in, my heartbeat just like an overplayed song on the radio. There are days that I burn, when staying buried under my sheets feels infinitely more worth it than getting out at all. Days when I let my fear of failure grab me by the throat with no intention of letting go, ones I wish would end before they even have the chance to begin.
I am human. Real. I make mistakes that stretch like wildfire and burn everything comfortable to me. I am a victim of comparison, of self-inflicted hurt, of seemingly endless defeat. There were eras where I measured my importance on the size of my waist, the amount of attention received from others, by false love. I once thought that I could find acceptance in what others had to say about my existence, that I would only find joy in being fearless.
Math scares me. Finding spiders in my sink terrifies me. Public speaking tosses my stomach like ***** laundry. My fear of abandonment holds me hostage, prevents me from tasting vulnerability. I am even afraid of myself on the days it is hard to keep inhaling and exhaling, inhaling and exhaling. I am very much afraid. I am alive because of it.
Fear is captivating, not always negatively. It allows us to understand what really matters based on a collection of what we are afraid of losing.
And yes, the same life I was eager to lose back a few forevers ago has morphed into one I never want to lose. I love this. I am loved, and I am holding on tight to the carousel of reality. I will hold my breath even if I fear running out of air, because I'd rather be breathless and experienced than falsely believe that there are no more horizons left to reach.