Is a life better to be lived 

Without the threat of change?

Bliss, after all, is sought in certainty, 

With quiet routine and syringed spontaneity,

Toying with inconsequential, swaddled choices.

And the identity of change is reduced to a hellion–

A looming, besetting beast,

That waits with jagged claws 

To bleed us dry.

But change isn’t bestial or violent.

It is found in the duality of the ocean

And the fingerprints of our hands.

It is heard in our mothers’ voices

And the yard of our home.

It’s seen in wrinkles, copper, and calluses,

And the relationship with our siblings.

It is shedded crocodile skin

And aching pubescent muscles.

It is teeth carving their way out

Of soft, pink gums,

Just to fall out all the same.

It is sprouting dandelions

That wait to die

So they can drift with abandon,

And soil that breathes life into flowers

From the moldered skin of lost loves.

Change is birth and growth within a cycle you live in–

Consumed, comfortable, and blind–

Then, a disruption that shoots cracks

Sprawling across porcelain habits,

And sending you backwards–

A broken cycle, deliberate growth, and a rebirth.

It is undertows, adrenaline, and racetracks.

It is skin, butterflies, and prisms.

It is a magnet, a rope, and a calling,

That drags you forward without sight.

Change is a whisper that does not ask

And a hand that grips your wrist,

Moving with stoic assumption.

It is a wicked smirk paired with kind eyes,

Watching with condescension as you search for answers.

Change isn’t bestial or violent,

Nor is it gentle or steady.

Its priority, the very root of its meaning,

Is to alter,

To shift,

To transform.

No objection or escape could slow it,

No planning or strategy could outwit it.

It is a breeze, a tide, a shift in the earth;

You can either allow yourself to be moved

Or be overtaken by it.

Change will happen all the same.

You, in this finite linearity of time,

Will be kissed and torn by change,

From womb to tomb.

You will love and lose.

Fall and rise,

Succeed and fail,

Shift and transform.

But what better of a life to live

Than to be unbeholden to any one thing?

What better of a life to live

Than to be changed?

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