Elevated

I climbed out of a hole in the ground, and didn't understand why everyone was walking straight ahead. The sky looked beautiful from the hole.

With such a beautiful canopy on top, I keep climbing, and was envious of mountains.

Once I had a mountain, I loved the sky. Then I lamented I could not touch the sky. I looked down, and I realized how far I'd come.

I went down, and most people were still in holes or walking ahead. Most didn't dare to touch the sky, and they judged me.

I finally realized that whatever desire I had of the sky, I had the same fear of falling to the ground.

That, in disdaining my soiled origins, I have put dirt over the work my mother put in elevating me, just so I could replace that love with a mountain, which was still not enough.

One day, that hole will be where my mother will be buried, and then, me too, and my children after me.

Until then, I am the hole, the disdain of mud, the boldness to climb out, the innocent pursuit of sky, the seemingly infinite mountain, the finite grasp of immense beauty, the failure to touch the sky from summit, the descent down, the shame of failure, and the eventual guide to those who only look up, only look down, and only look ahead.

Once I accept the bravery, the beauty, the horror, and the wisdom, I will see that it was I who always wanted more, and thought I was more.

To realize giving another what I never had is joy, is to realize that the sky is the same from both the hole and the mountain.

I will honor the self in pursuit of the sky, by selling maps of which I always failed to find, but can never stop loving to draw.