If I were to be told
that there are equations that measure
the curve of joy I would soon be
endlessly calculating:

scratching one term out, then
another, adding forever,
tumbling the quotients around,
eventually rethinking the whole process.

Then I would recall that every moment of math
demands its physics. I would
step outside and face the stars,
like a bad student who’s wasted his time.

In the movies the brilliant professor
spins the blackboard to reveal the proof.
I’d let the sky spin before me
and fall flat back, looking up, solving for joy.

Q.
How many slam poets does it take to change a lightbulb?

A.
Actually, none. Somebody else will probably get to that, eventually.

But 100 of them will stand around screaming about the NEED for change.

to know in your bones that you are no longer obligated to apologize for something you do that doesn’t conform to someone else’s idea of what is right.

Especially if it is something you know is right for you, but you’ve denied yourself or apologized for it just to keep the peace.

You learned early on that failure is your lot, and you’ll never live up to expectations anyway, so why bother to live up to your own? Someone’s bound to be disappointed either way; it might as well be you. You can take it, right, stud?

And if you do walk the line, try to please everyone…why then, you’re a hero. For as long as it lasts, no matter the cost to you.

Of course, someday you’ll fall off that tightrope…because failure is what you do, isn’t it? And if you fall, you fail, right?

Maybe not. Maybe you just fall. Maybe you die upon landing, maybe not. Maybe your entire life cracks open and spills a huge mess all over the ground; or maybe, it bounces.

That’s the point of walking the tightrope, isn’t it? To see how long it takes for you to fall?

It couldn’t possibly be that you have to walk it just to get to the other side.

If that were true, it would suggest that failure is optional. And it’s a given that that’s not true. A given.

Well, it always has been. But maybe it’s time to just give that back.