Today, I will be brave.
I will admit to the fact that I still haven't found that happiness I've been searching for.
It could be the fact that I haven't looked hard enough, or maybe I've just been looking too hard.
It could be the fact that there's a hormone in our bodies called serotonin, but my therapist says that I don't produce enough and that's why I have this thing that she calls depression.

So I take pills to make me feel better and that might be weird, you can think that if you want because the truth is that I think I'm weird too. Sometimes I think my weirdness is good, I can make people laugh if I really want to and I think that's pretty cool but there's also a bad weirdness to me that makes me feel really sad even though my life truly isn't all that bad but I can't help it. I can't just tell myself that everything's going to be okay because sometimes I don't even think I believe that anymore.

But today, I will be brave.
I will admit to the fact that yes, I have scars. But you know what? I have a birth mark on my right leg. I have freckles on my arms, I have ten fingers and a heart that pumps blood into my lungs and my lungs help me breathe. I have brown eyes and approximately one hundred and fifty hairs growing out of my eyelids that protect them from dust.

Yes, maybe I have purposely tried to hurt myself but so what? People say that whatever doesn't **** you only makes you stronger. Well I must be pretty **** powerful because every day is a war between life and death and I may not think that I'm beautiful, or smart, or worthy, but I have a broken heart that's still beating and a terrifying mind that is still able to think about the children in Africa and the people suffering from cancer and the lonely girl in my class that I wish I had the courage to talk to and tell her that we are all human. We may not feel that we deserve to be alive but we have blood coursing through our veins and purity in our souls and mouths that are capable of speaking every single language in the world and brains that hold an infinite amount of knowledge and bones that allow us to move and hearts that can love.

So please, be brave.
Put the gun down. Step away from the bridge, throw the pills away, untie the knot and stay with us. Use your bones to lift your hand and place it to the left of your chest and feel the vibration of the most important ***** in your body pulsing, keeping you alive. And that, my friend, is called purpose. You are still here despite everything that's ever happened to you. You survived the day when your best friend stopped calling and the day you waited two hours for that person who never showed up and the day you got picked up early from school to have your parents watch you get beat up on the playground and that's the day when they realized that their daughter is a loser but it's okay because you survived. You ignored the monster in your mind that is constantly knocking on doors but never being let in because you had the courage to say "stop. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to feel good about myself."

You are not a freak. You are not a loser. You are not fat, you are not ugly, you are not stupid. You are sixty percent water, sixty-five percent oxygen, eighteen percent carbon and one hundred percent human. Do not hate your body, you're beautiful. Do not hate your scars. Love them. Learn from them. Be the person who can say "yes, life was a battle and I didn’t come out untouched. I was beaten down and torn apart and bleeding from the skin and the heart. But I won." You conquered the bloodiest war, and you are so brave.

Yes, life is full of grief, and tragedy, and so much pain. Life is full of evil people and sickness and days where all you want to do is just get out of this place with so much hatred and cruelty and unfairness. But I have seen someone helping a stranger on the sidewalk, children holding doors open for the elderly, and love. So much love. And that's gotta be enough. We have to find a reason. We have to discover that one thing that will save us; that one good thing in this world that will give us hope. Hope that some day, things will be better.

But today, we will be brave.
Braver than yesterday, yet not as brave as we will be tomorrow. We will wake up with a smile on our face, and we will look in the mirror and say to ourselves:

"We are not our parents, we are not our siblings, or our teachers, or our friends, or our enemies. We are only ourselves. But one day, we will become doctors, we will become writers and lawyers and activists and dancers and rock stars. We will be mothers and fathers and lovers. We will not be perfect. But one day, our bruises will heal and our scars will fade and our pain will lessen and our smiles will become genuine. We will admit to the fact that bad days happen, but we will have so many good days and those are the ones that matter. We will not be our past, we will not be our mistakes, we will not be our fallen tears or our heart aches. We will be human, and one day, we will change the world."

I'm a *******.
An emotion addict,
Dramatic,
A ******* deatbeat-
But I don't steal.
*******.

Every minute,
twitter receives ninety eight
thousand tweets
and facebook just got
six hundred ninety five
thousand status updates
and in the time that it took for
someone to type out
"today *****"
a heart was broken
a peanut butter jar was emptied
someone just got caught in the storm
while another girl dances in the rain
a newborn took their first breath
and someone took their last
but a caterpillar turned into a
beautiful butterfly
just as an earthworm
shrivelled up on the sidewalk.

A mathematician's son
forces himself to write down
equations out of pure fear
that his father would get angry
if he told him he'd rather be an
artist and paint a picture
of daffodils and sunsets
and maybe even the
pretty girl who sits behind him
in class but the truth is that
she could never ever like someone
who wears rounded glasses
and attends all his classes
because hey, that's not cool.
Cool is skipping school
and taking your first drag
on a cigarette and
maybe even having ***
at a stranger's house with
a strange boy who never
even cared to ask you for
your name because
it's all just a game anyway
so stop asking so much
you're losing you're losing
stop.

At this moment in time,
a father came home drunk
because his life is another word
for something that comes out of
your **** and that's when he hit
his daughter for the very first time
but it certainly won't be the last
and no one else knows but that night
she set fire to her dream catcher
because she thought
it wasn't doing its job right.
It never ever ever kept the
nightmares at bay
because they stayed with her
every night and every day
and that's when she realized that
the nightmares were coming
from inside of her head
but it's okay it's okay
daddy said tears are for
weak people and she
must be strong
because how can you not be
when everyday you endure
three punches
two smacks
and a kiss
on the lips
for good luck.

At this moment,
a girl fell down while
walking to school
while another girl
watched and laughed
and a penniless lady
is stripped of her clothing
and dancing in a way that
no one should dance
just so she could feed her infant son
who can no longer breastfeed due to
his mother's alcohol addiction
but somewhere somehow
there's a rainbow coming up
after a day of grey skies
and a constant raincloud that
drooped over everyone
but it's okay because
a dying wildflower
just had the most
amazing drink
and you might think
that this life has no meaning
since we're all going to die
eventually and I know
that your cheeks hurt
from smiling and your
mouth can't tell
anymore lies
I'm happy I'm happy
don't look me in the eye.

Just remember that we
all feel pain and we all
have those days where
we just can't win
but let me tell you:
at this moment in time,
you're beautiful
you're beautiful
you're beautiful
and you'll be
okay.

A hippie hocked a louie on Sammy
when he landed in San Francisco.

Sammy didn't respond;
he just wanted to make
his connecting flight home.

Sammy wasn't proud about
some of things he did in the war;
so he figured he probably
deserved the garlands of disdain
an ungrateful nation bestows
upon itself in fits of self contempt.

Sammy shut down and tuned out,
soon his heart was as dead
as a tombstone until he visited
the monument.  

He would often recall the story
that as he approached the darkened
wall he could sense ghosts loosening
themselves from the black granite.   

Sammy swore that Jimmy Lynch
who went MIA on the final week of his tour
gave him a bear hug and told him
as long as the beer stays cold
and he don’t lose the church key,
everything's groovy and he’s
hanging tough until the rest
of the guys show up.

Jimmy pointed to the Lincoln Memorial
at one end of the mall and to the
Washington Monument at the other,
emphatically stating that our monument
was forever linked with the greatest Americans.

Yeah meeting up with Jimmy
helped Sammy to start shaken
off some real bad stuff.

Mazie knew her husband for a
month before they got married.
A week later Freddie was off to Vietnam.

Freddie was KIA during the Tet Offensive
and his repatriated remains are peacefully
at rest in the red clay of Georgia.

An always faithful Mazie
came to the monument
a few years after it was dedicated.  
She was struck by all the keepsakes
people left at the base of the wall;  
Zippos, baby pictures, a copy of
The Catcher in the Rye, a fifth
of Makers Mark, Pink Teddy Bears,
votive lights, a red 57 Chevy model,
a left handed catchers mitt, and
a pack of Lucky Strikes.

She palmed rosaries and
crucifixes that salved sore
running wounds and David’s
interlaced Star sounding a Shofar
pleading a case for peace.

Mazie is most moved by the names.  
Rows and rows of names. The scroll
begins in a modest manner and
as the wall climbs the names
of a country's vigilant sons and
daughters tower over her head.  
So much living history; spoken
in the unique accent of a country’s
diverse plethora of luminous tongues.

The stories written into the black granite
tell a tale from every state; claiming
the ears, heart and mind of every citizen. 
Each chiseled letter captures every bit
of sun and deep creeping shadow
inching across a great nation.

“I’m  71” says Mazie.  “When I look
upon the wall I see my 21 year old
Freddie as he looked on the finest
day of his life.  He will never look
any other way to me.”
  
“I didn't want to go to see it,” Franny said,
“a cold piece of stone won’t bring my son back.”

Franny did finally go...

When it rains the wall weeps.  
The wall wept all day,
the first time Franny went.

Many were rubbing
the impressions of
dearly departed names.

Franny too, kneels to the
presence of her son’s name.

With a mother's
grateful fingers,
she touches the wall's
damp surface; wiping
the drizzle from her
child's sodden face.

Kneeling before his semblance,
she rubs his etched edges
onto tiny bits of paper.

She sees him,
made manifest in the stone.
As if through a glass darkly,
a found son looks back,
onto the face of a caring mother.

Franny hangs onto the quiet
memory of his voice,
shimmering in the soft lilt
of a warm dark stone.

This deep core Vulcan gneiss,
at last emerged from the hardest stuff,
sculpts a perfect likeness of a tear stained nation.

The Harmonizing Four: Rock of Ages

In Honor of
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Washington DC

Oakland
Veterans Day
2013