I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
There'll be two dates on your tombstone,
And all your friends will read 'em,
But all that's gonna matter,
is that little dash between 'em.
One hundred percent of the shots you don't take don't go in.
1 comment:
As I read your first poem, bright colors flooded my mind. I especially like the line "to loosen my heart." Society constricts us. Prejudice tightens us up into ice cubes. It's not healthy for individuals, and it's not healthy for humanity. Isolation breeds violence.
Examining your passages, I get the sense that you want to live with a purpose. You don't necessarily want to live big and long, but dense. Packed. Meaningful. Am I right?
You've answered the question, "What is living?" with your passages. A quote by e.e. cummings comes to mind: "Unbeing dead isn't being alive." But I'm also left with the question, "What exactly does your 'brilliant blaze' look like?"
The line in your third passage, "I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time," reminds me of Joan Rivers and people who undergo plastic surgery to look younger. I once made a comment to an older friend of mine (she's in her late 50s): "My grandpa's getting old, the poor guy." She responded, "Well, that's what we're all headed towards." In a way, she made it so that I was my grandfather. Life is a circle, not a line.
Which is the problem I have with "that little dash between 'em." Is it really a dash? What do you think?
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