Braving the new world,
You feel an unbearable, unnameable fear,
Shaped by gray twists of smoke and red tendrils of fire,
Clouded in your brain’s muted blue mourning,
As if free falling in a bad dream
From which you wake, startled by the flailing of your limbs,
As if pushed off a precipice into dark roiling waters,
Whirlpooling into a deep abyss.
But you say to yourself,
I have been here before;
I have awoken the next morning,
A survivor of the bad dream.
And I have put on my shoes,
Tied the laces with determination,
Walked with boldness out into the street
In the glaring light of day, exposed,
But refusing to be vanquished
In vulnerability.
For nothing is ever made manifest without risk.
And you say to yourself:
I have a mouth which has a voice which has a heart which has a soul
Which has a passion which has a mind which has a hand which has a grasp
Which finds a pen which writes the words or makes the marks which say:
I shall not be silenced.
And I say to you, let us stand side by side
And clap thunder to the dark clouds of despair
And sing high the chant of true humanity.
The Muses of Happiness 