You are the greatest poem I could have
found.
You are a sunset bathed in purple, a
prayer of longing across the sky.
You are the sound of rain against my window,
and I’m afraid you forget it.
Here’s what I want to tell you: I know
you’re afraid.
I know you’re wading through the solid
chaos of a life,
Impatient and unsure, blundering through
darkness,
And I know you’re disillusioned, and I
know you hate it.
Baby, that’s all of us.
What I want you to know, really, is that
it doesn’t get better.
Life is always going to be callous, and
strange, and so unbearably short,
And so terribly long. And what I want to
tell you,
Is that we’ve got one chance at this. A single
shot,
And that should scare me, but it doesn’t
anymore. It gives me goosebumps.
It excites me, and I want it to excite
you. We’ve got one shot to live this.
There’s very little formula to it,
actually.
All you can do is wake up in the morning
and go to bed at night,
Drink chai on crisp winter days, buy new
shoes when they wear out.
But I want you to be content, not with
washed-out days and tentative nights,
I want you never to postpone a date or
sleep through a meteor shower,
Numb yourself to pain or think of taxes.
You’ll be fine.
I want you to watch the stars even when
you need to rush,
Sleep in on a Monday after watching a
Sunday sunrise, always
Get wet in the rain. Be a desert of
thirst. Always ask for more.
I know you’re afraid, and I want you to be
okay with that. I want you
To fall in love a hundred times (even if
it’s not always with me),
And I want you to fail, at least at
ninety-nine of those. I want you
To have the courage to let yourself hurt.
I want you to talk to the moon when you’re
alone. To never take beauty for granted.
To laugh at yourself, every day, and yet
be goddamn proud of yourself.
I want you to be as kind as you are, but I
want you to watch out for yourself, man.
It’s okay to screw up. It’s okay to get
lost, to spend a day in traffic,
To have made a mistake. Forgive yourself.
I want you always to forgive yourself.
It’s okay, as long as you take life by the collar, and promise me to live the hell out of it.
I want you to feel this in the small of
your back, rising up your spine
Like truth. Like a winter chill, or like
joy.
I want to tell you more than a flimsy
paper can hold,
More than a midnight conversation can
possibly balance in itself.
I want you to be responsible and sensitive
and have the balls to walk alone
If everybody who walks around you is an
asshole. I want you to do the right thing
Even when it’s the toughest thing to do. I
want you to smile at strangers.
I want you to go on a thousand road trips,
to have a thousand sleepless nights.
I want you to get drunk even when you have
a job interview the next day,
And I want you to shrug your shoulders if
you break your phone. I want you
To know what’s important, to love people
even when they’re broken and lost,
To love yourself. I want you to get lost
in a forest, to read under a streetlight,
And get on a train without knowing where
the hell it goes. I want you to feel
Like you’ve made something of yourself.
Like you’ve grown, like you have
An ocean-full of memories for every drop
that you’ve decided to live through.
Rumi once told me, with shining eyes, to
let the beauty I love be what I do.
Damn right I will, man. And that’s all I
wish for you too.
I want to tell you to defy all the pain in
the world.
Screw history. Screw philosophy. Screw
law. And screw your fears.
For god’s sake, be happy. Live the hell
out of this life.