To Live Is To Be Born

To have life

is to be born.

And to be born

is to leave the darkness,

the quiet shadows

of your mother’s womb.

 

To be born

is to leap

into a world

you do not understand.

 

You arrive

with a cry.

Not a whisper.

Not a greeting.

 

A cry.

 

Because the first lesson of life

is pain.

The pain of breath.

The burning of air in the lungs.

The shock of light.

The sudden cold of the world.

That gasp

that trembling step

into the unknown.

 

Without pain

there is no life.

Without pain

there is no breath.

 

We are born to live.

But what does it mean

to live?

 

To live

is to carry pain

and still move forward.

 

To live

is to wake up hungry.

To eat

not because you want to,

but because hunger

demands it.

 

Hunger is a small pain

that returns

every day.

And so you eat

to silence it.

 

But even growth

comes with pain.

The pain of school.

Because knowledge

does not come easily.

The pain of waking early.

Putting on clothes.

Stepping into a world

that sometimes welcomes you

and sometimes sends bullies

to greet you.

 

The pain of expectations.

Of responsibility.

Of work.

The pain of politics.

The weight of society.

The burden of values

and morality.

 

The pain of watching others sink.

The news on the radio.

The voices on television.

Stories of family.

Stories of a nation.

 

Even music

sometimes music is just pain

that learned how to sing.

The pain of creation.

Because to create

is to wrestle

with the world.

 

So listen

 

To live

is to be born.

And to be born

is to feel pain.

You are born

to grow.

You are born

to live.

And to live

is to sustain that pain

every day.

Yet life remains

sweet,

sour,

beautiful.

And still

after all this

we choose

to live.

Because to live

Is to learn the balance of life