i am sorry that you are upset and i am sorry that no one knows how to help you
and i am sorry that i turn that into my own failure
but i know that beauty lives in this place
in the canyon on a sunny day
and in the hugs that friends exchange in the library lobby
as they're crying about papers that they don't know how to finish
and their friends say:
you just have to do the best you can and then it's done
and this is just a place made out of bricks and books
and i know it's hard sometimes to remember why you came here
and where you want to go
but this is just a stop on the way to tomorrow and next year and the rest of your life
so this is how you do it:
you live today and then you live tomorrow
you live this minute before you try the next one
and you hold it in your heart or in your pocket that sometimes
things hurt and sometimes
things break
but we are not dog paddling to nowhere
that's only fog blocking the shore
and it'll pass
it'll pass
and the sun will rise and your professors will say:
this place isn't a city upon a hill
this is a godless place
made of only books and bricks
and there is life after 22 and life after 30 and
maybe those books don't have all the answers
and maybe i don't either and
there's something to be said for the way it feels to catch the eye of a stranger in this place
because we're all in this place feeling stuck in this place sometimes
but there are doors to let us out and no walls to keep us in
just books and bricks and our parents' cheques and the little voices in the back of our minds
the ones that say:
you are better than this
you are smarter than this
hold your head up higher and remember
that somewhere there is the ocean
and somewhere there is your grandma
and she's smiling and she's proud of you no matter what
but she knows that this isn't the be-all end-all
and she knows that sometimes this place goes down like kids' cough syrup
but she knows this too:
that somewhere inside of you beneath the things you want too much and the things
you can't forget
is an optimist
who wants the world and will do anything to get it
so don't you forget
the feeling of a wriggling puppy in your arms and the way it smells
at the beginning of spring and the sound
of your name
on somebody else's lips
because those are things
that make you a person
and those are the things that remind you
that these bricks and books aren't all there is
and i am not yet all that i am going to be.
