H.U.M.A.N.

You
I see you
Every one of you, with your bright eyes
With your dreams painted in the irises
Every one of you with your lives written
In the wrinkles of your forehead
In the scars on your knees
In the color of your fingernails
Every one of you with your love hidden
In the shadows of your eyelashes
With your fear carved
In the creases of your curled fists
With your sorrow shining
On the white of your wrists
Every one of you with your flaws etched
Into your past,
Your past chiseled in stone,
Once a tabula rasa
Now smeared with sweat and tears and blood
And scribbled hearts and little notes
Simply from existing in this world.
Every one of you
 
I love you.
For being

Humble and
Undying.
Man may never
Attain
Near perfection

 Not to a T. Not by experiments, not by learning, not by trying.

But I see it.
In your eyes. In your skin.
In your hair, your heart, your soul,
The tornadoes coming from your lungs and
The footprints you leave behind in dew-covered grass and
The clouds your head has drifted in and
The imprint of the setting sun in the shadows of your fingertips
 
I love you
So please stay
 
Here
Under
My
Abstract
Notions

So that you can be sheltered
By the blanket of my hopes for you
And always know that I have faith.
 
I have faith in you, so you should too.
Have faith in the quiet in your mind.
In the touch of a leaf on a pond,
Sending ripples up your skin like Morse code
Telling you to smile like you mean it
Because behind the pearls we’ve waited so long for
Lies your voice
Your vehicle, your little boat
And it’s tied to the dock of your self-doubt
Of your impatience, your insecurities, your anger,
By a rope I’ve been trying to wear thin
Through the razor blades of my tongue
And if nothing else, let those blades cut
Into your lungs so that
Even if you won’t speak, you can
Breathe.

Humanity
Underlies
Most of
All our waking
Nightmares

But

Hearts with
Untouched
Memories and
Ageless faith
Never die out

And hearts must have humans to live,
And humans must have hearts to love,
And if humanity is the heart of our existence,
Then the heart of our humanity is hope.

So you,
With the eyes glowing with wildfire
And a fear of the future and need of the past,
You
With the fists like fireworks
And the mouths like minefields
You
With the backbone of a bombshell
And the healing bruises on your ego
You
With the childish wonder in the corner of you eye
And the kiss in the corner of your lips
And the voice
Hidden like a prima Donna behind the curtain before her biggest show
Loud as thunder, but buffered by the clouds
With your pearls still clasped in the clam of your anxieties

Take a deep breath
And hope.
- Olivia Rowland (Spring 2011)