Reluctant Adults

Reluctant adults
Dumped into the real world

Still children at heart
Wearing grown ups skins  
Uncomfortably held in place by needles and pins
Because imagination dead ends
Where adulthood begins
At the bottom of a crapshoot        
Your future depends
On the alignment of stars
And the rulings of men
You'd never care to meet
And who care less than too little about you
From the tip of your top
To the toes in your shoes
Because you stand alone in the crowds of the many
Numbers running through the Perfunctory administration
At the bottom of a crapshoot
You find no willing participation
No cohesive indoctrination
On the challenges ahead
Or the pitfalls to come
Just the dazed and confused
The shaken and numbed      
The rattled and concussed
Reluctant adults
All empty shells
And shriveled husks
To start new lives and create new worlds
At the bottom of the crapshoot
     
We begin                            

Freshly from the ashes
And newly from the trash          
Baggage in hand
Fleeing from the  past
Kicking up debris
In the wake of our beginnings
The folly of the future
Stays clouded in our eyes      
Stays wandering in surprise    
The great shadow of doom
The pessimist might surmise
But we hope to stay hopeful
The crapshoot's greatest trick
Was stealing wonder from the young
And hope from the innocent

Applause For the Valiant

To all my once upon a timers
To all my dreamers in the sky
To all my long lost familiars
To all those who dared to try
To all those who wished upon shooting stars
In the midst of propitious nights
To those who twisted middle around index
And tussled with maybe and might
To those who swayed with the ball
Hoping it might swing in their favor
To those who clutched at their beating hearts
And still chose to move forward
To those who excluded rhyme and reason
From their bags of tricks
And stocked up on Why Not and Just Because instead
To all of you
Who looked out at bitterness and pain
But still never said die
To everyone who whistled a happy tune
Whilst the ground cracked and trembled beneath you
To those who sprouted wings
To be better than circumstances intended
To those whose spines never curved
Under the weight
To those whose passions
Still burn bright
Even after the world has since declared checkmate

To the ones under the starry starry nights
With twinkling eyes and good company
Unknowingly hanging on for dear life

I applaud you