The Question

Can you hear the silence
As you stand
On the threshold
Of everything that matters
Clinging to your footholds and handholds
Listening to the growing hum
Of hundreds of humans
Slowly raising their voices
Until the hum becomes a buzz
And the buzz becomes a roar
And the roar becomes more,
A cacophony of insanity,
People desperately screaming
To make their words heard,
To distinguish their messages

And you, clinging to the edge,
What are you going to do about it?
It’s time, it’s time
Time to make your decision
And share your convictions
Time to get your gears in motion
And add your voice to the commotion
Time to fling the sounds
Your vocal cords have created,
Uniquely yours,
Into the din, until your vowels and your consonants
And your phonetics rise about the rest

Or will you find yourself frozen
Petrified by the devotion of others
That you can’t seem to match
Immobilized by the frenzy
Of those fighting for attention
In a world of self-invention
It is time, it is time
It is time to leap from your hiding place
Or turn your face away from it all
To leap and fly
To leap and fall
To do nothing at all
You rest on the cusp of the rest of your life—
And this is it
It’s time
And it all comes down to you—
What will you do?