The Meaning of Everything

I found a letter from my best friend

Her second year in college

She wrote to me about

Finding that "dram job" with the big paycheck

Saying she wished she didn't know herself so well

Because she was sure she would sell out.

--

This big bad world gets us all - we are seduced by the glory

And sometimes succumb to the "easy way out"

Rather than trudge along in our quest for some affirmation

Of our personal glow -

But is it really so bad

To accept the gold when it comes knocking

Rather than knock it in spite when we view it

In another's bag of bacon?

--

Opportunities beckon and beacon

In waxes and wanes

And all one can do is ride the wave of time and chance

And hope along the way that some glimmer of her character

Will become a part of the infinite -

Part of the change and inspiration

That illuminates everything,

Even if in seemingly miniscule ways.

--

I too a pawn of society

Grown in duality by the shapes of conformity

And the shapelessness of creativity

A product of chance and choice

Bred by my parents blood and that of those

Who have touched me throughout the years,

And therefore I too

Will sell out

From time to time

Glean from the riches of success

(whatever that means)

as much as the intangible moments

of the sublime peaks of greatness

that unfolds unto and from me.

--

Fortune is a matter of perception

That dips and bellows

Sometimes hidden in corners of sorrow

Sometimes amplified by pivots of perfection

Sometimes unnoticed at all

Until we stop and look around

And realize everything is so tiny

And yet everything is too large

To comprehend

--

So I try and write it down, as she did,

I try and solidify that somehow I've found it

I've figured something out

I've transformed and regenerated

The internal upon the external

The what if's into the what is

The what will come

From the what has been

Only to find -

As she did -

That nothing will ever be certain

Nothing will ever be unchanged

Especially when trying to pinpoint it.

--

And we all trifle through memories, trying to define

We all sift through ideas

To try to refine

Ourselves,

This world,

And what we make of it.