Shake hands with your neighbor
as though you are in a commercial,
pickpocket love filling every square inch
of the paper, express your shame about
racism, colorism, classism, discrimination
and dedicate your newfound knowledge to
all lives matter.

Take the advice of others upside down,
kindly roll down the window and offer a ride
for each unwanted opinion while employing
lots of footnotes then toss some salt
over each shoulder for good measure.

Misremember mistreatment
with your dying breaths, break
every possible barrier while describing
your lack of self-worth while hopping
on one foot, hypnotize happiness
using only two-syllable words.

Nervously kid about everything
while looking in the mirror
blandly relate an anecdote
about fearlessness in the form
of a message in a bottle
get distracted by another person’s
opinion as though you were
the person you most admire.

Calculate time without haste, pretend
you don’t care about rushing while
pretending no one is watching, invest
in patience, dashingly spend your time wisely
as though giving directions to a snail.

Throw a friendly arm around boredom
while sweating profusely, overthink
reading a book, never quite getting to
the point of someone else’s imagination
move blocks of apps around on your
phone to add a little excitement.

Heavily edit your comments about
harming yourself as if you are freezing
to death cut off all considerations of
ending the temporary pain while requesting
help reveal the truth about quietly battling
mental illness in the trunk of your car.

Make a big deal about your birthday
on a manual typewriter, present
hairsplitting arguments about celebrating
your special day while walking around
in circles, throw yourself a surprise party
every day on your birthday month.

Get up in the face of failure
using good ole’ consistency; try
and deflate “the sky is the limit” balloons
of limitations placed on dreams
challenge the conventional wisdom
about your potential sharpening your skills
with only one positive move per day
for three weeks to form a good habit.

Embalm anxiety making every line
a question, choose a position
on happiness in blank verse
hide behind fearlessness, then
crumple it up and try again

Talk as fast as you can about water
using ridiculous words you found
in the thesaurus tell a boring story
about thirst as the voiceover to a movie.

Originality, individuality
the meaning of greatness
and its possibilities