I wish I could slow this down,
take a breath,
exhale.
But there’s nothing I would change.

What does it do to wish we
walked in different shoes?

I try to drop the extra weight; even so,
the pressure finds my shoulders.
Someone else would kill to know that weight.
They admire what you do, yet they don’t know how
to say it.
That’s okay.
You’ve changed their day
by smiling;
you opened up the door.

The bus arrived. I saw your
kid, sleeping in your arms;
you waited with tired eyes.
You stood strong.
You were there.
You may not see it now, but you’re
not just a parent,
a friend.
Within your arms,
they can’t imagine
letting go.
You’re their world.
There is no life without you.

Life’s a mystery, isn’t it.
The greatest tests give us the most.
Is there more than this?
If only we could see.
Others have it better;
we’d be happy if…
If what?
If we could see the world as they do,
understand their pain?
Feel the times they’ve worked and
the way their body’s strained?

Do I want everything that comes with that success:
the fallen tears
and broken wings,

crumbling from the sky.
Burnt by the sun,
the point they thought they made it.
Only to rebuild. To start over.
Looking at another soul,
no envy in my heart,
only passion,
thinking their life is the goal.
Let their life encourage yours,
for the comparison is empty.
The well’s run dry.
My only adversary’s me;
My greatest friend is I.

No one knows the steps we walk,
how an inch equates another’s mile,
a step that only you can take — can’t you see?
That inch,
encouraged someone’s
eyes to
open.

I see your life, and fuck,
I’m happy for you.
Seriously, totally, happy.
Your heart glows from the beauty
in the way your eyes shine.
That smile’s genuine.
I’m happy just to know you.
To have a friend whom I can grow with.
Nobody’s made it. No one’s there.
No line to cross
to make it clear.

Yet there are moments of simplicity;
life’s wonderful, isn’t it?
They come when we’re totally consumed
in what we can’t explain.
Living in a city,
I’ve helped people up who have fallen.
I’ve seen others who seemed broken.

Yet they’re stronger than
I could ever understand.
I can’t explain it,
overcome by this feeling in my soul,
that the most important thing
I could possibly do,
is help.

There’s shit in the world that scares me.
It’s not the world that makes me afraid; that, I’ll face.
It’s straying further from love, a deeper meaning
which derives
not in a world of polish and steel,
but from the beautiful and ancient
darkness of our nature.

From the extraordinary hearts that
beat faster when afraid,
stronger when they overcome,
lighter when connected.

I refuse to lose my soul,
that which gives the world its color.

Living in a city,
I see we’re still just people.
I smile. I breathe. Surrounded by others
living just like you and me.
We’re people who fall and feel pain and share
gratitude from an unexpected helping hand.
We all struggle in our own way,
although wishing it were different,
we leave love on the table with the keys.

Time we’ll never have again.

There’s only one you.
This is me.
Not wishing it were different
There’s no one else I’d rather be.