What Makes You Come Alive?

What Makes You Come Alive?

By Mary Pinkoski


What makes you come alive?

What ignites the electrons in your brain?
What shoots sparks off your fingertips until you are writing your own creation story?
What turns your limbs tambourine shake
and convinces you that there is ancient rhythm in how you hold yourself?

What makes you come alive?

What life force have you breathed into the dry riverbed of your mouth?
What ferocious animal courses through your veins?
What grounds you?
What prophecy holds you in place?
What lifelines run through your history?
What are you holding in your palms?
Who holds you?

Have you forgotten that you are a miracle?

You are just as much ocean as the Pacific,
just as much sand as the Sahara,
as much mountain as Everest,
as much eruption as Vesuvius,
So let yourself erupt,
you vibrant life force.
Burst forth with all the energy inside you.

You are more than just 75% water,
more than a bundle of nerves,
a collection of arteries.
You miracle.
You are more than a Facebook status.
Your song is not being sung in the twittering of 140 characters.
A 10 second Snapchat does not define you.
Your worth is worth more than the weight of an Instagram.

So do not let yourself be suffocated by hallways,
boxed in by desks,
inadequately captured in cyberspace.

You are a crack in the foundation,
a shimmering out of social media.

You swallower of light,
You bright beam,
You are resilient life growing through the cracks.

You are art.
You are beauty.
You are more.
You are so much more.

More than this poem,
more than any story that has ever been written about you,
more than any story you are writing about yourself.

And every day,
You are writing a story,
and with each word,
you are coming alive