The Challenge

You.

I challenge you.

I may hear you across a room.
Read your messages or tweets.
See you in a mirror.

Doesn’t matter.
I demand satisfaction.

I challenge you to love.
Let compassion prevail over myopia.

I challenge you to change perspective.
I know another’s shoes don’t fit;
that they’re painful and weird,
especially to walk a mile in them.

I challenge you to walk in them anyway.

I challenge you to silence your fear.
Allow light to dispel the shade
you’d throw on another.

Would you want another to diminish your shine?
No?
Then I challenge you to not diminish others’.

I challenge you to rise above your bullshit.

I challenge you to be mindful.
To listen to the lessons of music.
To say “I will survive”.
To break “the sound of silence”.
To remember that you’ll never know
“who lives, who dies, who tells your story”.

I challenge you to unchain your heart from the pain of the past.

I challenge you to learn from failure and doubt.

I challenge you to move in the direction of tomorrow.

I challenge you to embrace the joy of simply being alive.

I challenge you to take up arms, to rail against ignorance and indecision, to fucking fight for yourself.

I challenge you to believe.
Believe in yourself.

And if you’re gonna dig,
I challenge you to dig for the heavens.