A Poem: When Your Life Becomes Your Own

Excuses take so many forms.
so many truths that we don’t want to face
     out of comfort, complacency, a means to cling to mediocrity.
when you go silent, it is like sleeping
playing along
playing dead
never creating a storm.

When does complacency seep in,
     through the other cracks?
soothing in its non-activity
     it’s laziness
     it’s lack of drive and
     nights of macaroni and cheese.

Where is the line?
When do you wake up?

Is it out of frustration, boredom
    or perhaps
    a desire to suck the marrow out of life
    to shake the overbloated, pasty, bleary-eyed trance?

When do the lights come on,
when does fire burn,
when are you truly present?

To show up
to love.

It is then that my life becomes my own,
and then that you will change the world.

Baby-steps
    even in your perceived “smallness,”
    your words
    your thoughts,
You are needed.

The world is asleep, dark, cold, lonely
until we awake, face to the sun, stretching,
breathing new life into the unsung promise of your greatness.