Proud

We all have something we're proud of

And something we're not.

Like when I said I wanted

To give the college degree a miss,

Go to design school, launch the arrows

To see if they hit, they said

Great, take the risk, you're good at it, you're good at everything,

(I think), just when

I get nothing more than

A verbal green light which tried to mean

Both more and less,

Something like

Let me support you

But first, I'll think about

How I'm probably going to work

Until I'm 90.

Yet it wouldn't mean much if things were clear,

If it could be shelved away in box labelled Things You Get With Generation Gaps, paying no mind at all

To whatever ignorance I hear.

But it was strange, because it was disillusioning,

How I realised I could do without it,

That I couldn't build my castles like I thought.

And how I realised

I was probably emptier

Than this conservative Chinese family was.

There are days where I wake up empowered

And nights where I go to bed

With so much gratitude pounding within.

It's the feeling of

A thousand Roman candles lighting up in progression along my spine

When my hands give way to

Something so achingly beautiful

Just because I could call it mine.

And it's what comes when

I close my eyes in a Hallelujah,

Think about everything that got me here today –

Things that were lost,

And things that were realised

Along the way.

Yet there are days where my will

Dwindles to a few silent drops off a leaking faucet,

Where twenty-four hours become so long they're embarrassing.

And I've seen nights spent

Curled up in fetal positions,

As if it would hark back to

Those sparkling eyes, the hand which was always held,

The days when I was still

Nothing short of a child.

And so it goes, I guess,

Hashtagging a couple of life decisions #yolo, #adventure, #swag, maybe,

While stumbling through the melodies of others

Because I was hopelessly out of key.

And while I lay gazing at this night sky that is life,

I see constellations romanticized with possibility

While all they are might just be

Leftover confetti.

Because this is a balancing act,

Of the good and the bad, just like how

We all have something we're proud of

And something we're not.