The beginning of the journey always has the most momentum. 

But I don’t know this yet. 

I am naive to the voyage that awaits me.

I sleep under the brightness of stars and comets and meteors and auroras.

Their rarity makes me eager to meet my future.

Will I, too, be exceptional?

I am gasping for air but out of the corner of my exhausted eye, I see a stone.

But the stone turns into a rock and the rock maximizes into a boulder.

I blink but never want to open my eyes again.

I breathe but never want to exhale again.

I could build a fortress out of the stones thrown at me.

But instead, I made a path to the dreams I deemed under the light of the meteors.

My wide strides strike the stones down.

I am still a far way from the top, yet I feel no despair.

The journey ahead has countless stones targeting my heart, my soul, my spirit.

And in a couple steps, there may be hunters haunting me.

But the persistence of hope courses through my veins as I make my next stride.

For my mind is a ballroom

Thoughts and memories waltzing around, shining in all their glory.

I am the captain of my own ship, steering at my own will.

Through all trials and tribulations, I have my shoulder to lean on.

They can strip me of my dignity and youth but never of my truth.

My breathing is more scarce, the icy breeze immortalizing each one like a picture.

But there is an eerie calm that pilots this internal chaos.

As I near the peak, I look down at the past behind me.

I can’t help but feel nostalgic for the trips, the stones, the despair because they have matured me.

Often I have tripped, blood and stimulus gushing out of my sin.

Often they have tripped me on pebbles just for a momentary laugh.

Often I have longed to turn around and yield to failure

But it is the small glimmer I see at the farthest point of my sight that beats like an anthem of my desires and reminds me why I climb.

Alas, I’ll enter the peak of the mountain, I’ll look out to see the view from above.

It’s nighttime now, I may just be the only one awake in the whole world.

But as I look out and see my life flash in my eyes, I am well content.

The haven of Heaven is here only because I have endured hell.

There is obstruction. There is turmoil. There is blurriness.

But there is light flashing from every single direction.

Pointing me, guiding me, unfazed by me.

If I squint, it looks like a meteor.