Sunday, March 8, 2015

instruction manual


We are the roses
We are the thorns


The mountain top sunsets
The New York City horns

We are the barefooted hotel-carpet walkers
We are the cold butter morning toast spreaders



The wheel-spinning, token-moving, jump-ahead-3, Life playing girls and boys.
The losers
The winners
The frustrated finishers

Most of us have read the 27 page long instruction manual, but no one can remember what’s on 11.
But we all faintly remember it was titled High School.

But I do remember page 14 and the fact that it says “Life is better once you pass the square labeled WELCOME TO COLLEGE” three separate times


I’ve always known life is more than a game though.

It’s that 18 letter word you always forget how to spell
The beautiful complications of being in an unfamiliar city.
Me trying to do the splits

Life is stopping every once and a while and wondering “what is life and why am I here?”
and finding that it’s hiding in things like disposable cameras and 2am prayers.

It’s in closed eyes and open bibles
In closed bibles and open minds

The instruction manual ended with “life is to be lived”

And there’s a reason life and live
are one letter off
are found on the same page of the dictionary
are connected


So let go of the spinner, put down your plastic pawn
And go swim and jump and dance



Because the only way you can write the word life
is with decades of Sunday walks

and years and years of star gazing. 

F. Sharpe

4 comments:

  1. 1. this is such an amazing post.
    2. "It’s in closed eyes and open bibles
    In closed bibles and open minds" damn
    3. "We are the barefooted hotel-carpet walkers
    We are the cold butter morning toast spreaders"

    ReplyDelete
  2. hi just wanted to say I love this

    ReplyDelete
  3. i love this. i really like the line about live and life, its so true and i just really liked this.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This was flawless. 2am prayers yes. The bible part. Yes. You write beautifuly and word things beautifully. Fell in love with this.

    ReplyDelete