the Change I Wish to See

every moment is a once in a lifetime
not because tomorrow's not promised
but because even if it was
right now is exactly what tomorrow could never be:
this very moment.

but instead of living life like we own it
we've lived life like we've been loaned it -
like we're seat-fillers at the Oscars
only to shine after commercial breaks,
or anxious temporary cardholders
awaiting an expiration date -
we trudged through the motions
as if soon it would all be over
and we'd see the other side.

we've lived in the tiniest corners of our minds
unable to share close encounters of the human kind
figuring any extra terrestrial
must be an extra-terrestrial
and that no body on Earth
could be as heavenly as the celestials...
but we're all stars in the dopest show in the universe,
so why do we act like understudies?

we're all headliners
and though the only act we know
is in these costumes,
the only stage we're on is this one
and though we can't guarantee an encore performance next week
when the only future we can grab belongs to yesterday,
why do we hold on for dear life
like living's worth not wanting more?

and when we do get a glimpse of tomorrow,
why do we assume it's beyond our control?
like on the right hand of God sits Jesus
and on the left sits a deistic puppet master
whose strings hide from sight
as imitation silver linings in clouds,
strings that guide us
to waltz through years like ballrooms,
light on our feet
mid-dance, anxious of our judge's scores;
we get caught up
assuming destinies
awaiting hand-me-down fates...

but when we assume that we're only,
that we're second, that we're barely
we assert selfish superstition upon malleable experience;
like when the politics of hope are broken into fantasy
and the pieces show their cracks
jagged and unseemly;
or when the power of our faith,
one a god could never have,
is traded in for short-term gains
and our souls sugar-crash.

yet with our power to assume
comes power to engage -
to move from cleaning off the table
to eating off the plates,
from being victims of the law
to deciding how it's made,
from meaning "dark," "feared" and "unknown"
to shining on the brightest stage.

we won't be kings like kings once were
we won't be queens, or even dukes;
we won't get rich off reparations
it's 2008, we don't need mules;
our homes will still be measured in feet
not in acres, not draped in jewels;
we won't strike back with vengeful hearts
'cause we know what it's like to lose.

what we will be is the promise
that our parents made to us:
finally embraced
with more than arms-length transactional hugs.