Little girls scribble thoughts and call them poems Little boys scrawl stories they call verse No idea what better looks like, they shame this art form That I have come to treasure Children, unaware they play with the components For atom bombs and time machines Delicate instruments that require fine-tuning and mastery Anyone can learn to play a piano by sitting down And playing, ever expanding the knowledge needed As fingers learn the grace required to dance across the keys Today I write these words not to destroy but to build Youth was never known for listening, she is a screamer But look, look at those who’ve tread this path before you We have danced with devils, We have eaten with kings We have fought the battles you will someday endure It might be cliché, but we’ve been there, done that And some of us even have the T-shirts to prove it So today I am making a humble request Not that you listen, merely that you look Look and see what we ourselves have learned I stand here, currently in the middle Of this gap across time Like the sun I have journeyed west To slowly cross this hazardous bridge Before I climb the top of tomorrow’s summit Where I will someday lie down like an elephant Knowing that I will not rise, and that your own journey Merely a few days’ footsteps behind me Is perilous, deadly, and long, as has been mine Do not ignore this guidance I am trying to give you Learn from those who’ve traveled before you So that you don’t make their mistakes yourself