every up-pushing bent green-yellow-frayed grass blade and raggedy, seed-**** protruding from

the hard cold winter ground in front of me

— like the billions of leafy counterparts and bladed look-alikes growing rudely fecund from —

rocks
cement
asphalt

or from

vacant lots
littered fields
waste-places

remind me that you and i are part of a raggedy but indefatigable weight of persistent  burgeoning glory

Running in place is all I seem to be doing.

Wanting growth is hard when you don't have the means,
but the will is so strong.

So strong is all these people ever say
wanting to brake you down with expression
coupled with envy.

My walls cave in
the pressure seems to crush me completely imploding my body into matter.

What's the matter now?
What's next
Im waiting.

Waiting for the light to shrine through
to carry me up
to somewhere new.

unwelcome resident

   methodical thief
    
        stealing health

            leaving victims

                 silently suffering

                      I
                        N
    ­                       V
                              I
                               ­ S
                                  I
                          ­          B
                                       L
                                         E

                                          A
                  ­                        F
                                       ­   F
                                          L
                ­                          I
                                     ­     C
                                          T
              ­                            I
                                   ­      O
                                         N

                  struggling to shoulder

                     optimism's burden

                       while future taps

                       an impatient foot

Flowers ever rise
Come the dawning of the day.
Skyward though they strive
They are plucked and thrown away.

The festival of life
Welcomes chaos to the fray;
Yet flowers ever rise
Come the dawning of the day.

The first step is the hardest
the second, harder still
    a steeper step, I follow through
    my world, it seems, is built askew
     my goal, to clime that hill

     Yet not all treads are equal
        some forward
    some reverse
    a trail is nowhere to be found
  its easier to turn around
the valley ground, a curse

But patience is a virtue
  persistence is a key
   surmounting mountains is a must
   when voices urge within each gust
   escape, and you go free

     Those winds, they carry forward
         and inching steps amass
      a lifetime spent inside a ditch
            and suddenly the trough is breached
                     I reach the top at last

                     But legs, they know just walking
                     not how to stand and cheer
                    inertia pull, and I comply
                    across, and to the other side
                 it’s all downhill from here

You think the world hates you.
The current always pushing,
The worms always digging,
And the fisherman taking your friends.

But the world thinks nothing of you.
Because you're an oyster
In a sea of oysters
And nobody can see what's inside.
It could be a pile of dirt
Or the sea's prettiest pearl.

So you can wait your whole life
Expecting someone to come
And crack you open
Or you can find your own light
Make your way to shore
And bide your time outside the ocean.

Presents
are nothing
without presence.