You want to make the world scream to a hollow
because you fear you are nothing,
you are an unextraordinary,
unaborted, caged regret.

Inside, you rage at mirrors,
while on the surface, you wax bitter
about your distorted views of people born into dreams,
who you believe deserve your nightmares.

You want to give yourself meaning
where there is no purpose,
and purpose
where there is no meaning.

Well…

Meaning is born from truth,
purpose from light.
Both live inside a resilient soul,
surrounded by a hope that’s evergreen,
even when buried
under the lies you tell about us,
and we internalize and fossilize
as unstable, corrosive truths.

Your fear turned to stone,
hate anchors you to misery.
But that fear is not unique—
that fear of the unknown and unknowable,
of the free and uncontrollable,
of the truth about you in your lies about others.
It’s the fear that all our parents gave birth to.
You are not special.
You are not owed.

None of us are owed.
Each of us decide whether to do the work,
to not escape the unease we’re made from.
We each decide to face the daemon chasing us,
holding its gaze to deaden its power.

Excavate, excavate, excavate your soul:
allow the hundreds of other lives you might touch
to also be free to be.

(*racists, sexists, homophobes, ageists, and all bigots.)