The future gets no say in who we are.

If I didn't have so much of this life all wrong I would have gotten it right by now.

We were never tragedies. We were emergencies. You go ahead, call 9-1-1. Tell them I'm havin' a fantastic time.

If you've never been rocked back by the presence of purpose this poem is too soon for you. Return to your mediocrity, plug it into an amplifier and rethink yourself.

You're a free-standing landing pad held together by choir claps.

You can call me an angry ghost when I'm gone, or laugh into my disposition. But my mom will still see me as her wide-eyed wanderer out behind the garage inventing ways to fend off dog attacks that will probably never happen.

Jordan tattoos the words "forgive me" in thick black letters down the inside of his arm so that when he looks at his wrist he will remember not to hate himself so much. What he keeps forgetting is that there is life after survival.