2020. I feel like that's all I have to say now. "Hey man, how are you?" "Oh well, you know. 2020. Am I right?" Then just laugh it off like it's no big deal. But it is. This is the year we needed. To open our eyes and face reality and just punch a hole in it. This is not a year of light or happiness. This year is a bottomless pit that we keep falling into. Month after month there's always some obstacle preventing us from finding peace. Yet, you still sit here and do nothing. I know how you feel: hopeless. Tired. You alone can't do anything for anyone and you're stuck as you see media feeding us lies and you just want to believe in them so badly, that the Government really is trying to help us by giving us money. So we don't cause an uproar from quarantine and covid. Big corporations feeding us entertainment so they can live big while we think we're the lucky ones. What about those that are unlucky? The people forced, stuck, in an industry that allows harrassment behind the scenes and corruption as we sleep. You think you can't change that? What about women's suffrage? 1852. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1950's. Malcolm X, 1965. Brenda Howard, 1970. These people represented us valiantly and justly, they had courage and they were hungry for change. Where's your hunger? You have to crave for a better world, not just lie in the comforts of your own home. We can unite as one, because past the skin and past the cognitive works that make you, you, all I see is a human. A human who has the same core beliefs as I do: justice, equality, and peace. What we are living through is anything but. And it all starts with you. Living and breathing for a better world, because we can do it just like the people before us who left their beautiful legacies for our protection. We need to do right by all the people before us, and for those are crying out for help, by standing up and saying "I want change." Start a movement. Be apart of one. We have a voice and together we can move mountains? You want to be heard? Then talk until your throat runs dry. You want change? Stand up until your feet bleed. Stand against those who try to control you, look them in their eyes, and say: "I want change." Because it starts with you.

I had always wondered what the version of me was like in a parallel universe. This poem is what I came up with 🌻

Wake up. Eat. Work. Come home. Eat again. Sleep. Repeat. We're no different than conditioned zombies, trained to do whatever it is that keeps us sustained in life. Corporations trained us like dogs to do their bidding, and by the time we've accomplished our training for the day we are exhausted. Our minds are shut off and all we can think about is resetting. So, what happens when over a billion people across the nation are forced to stay home? Forced to come to terms with who they are and everything they can't be. To quarantine for the safety of themselves and their neighbors, but are we truly safe from ourselves? The demons that never cut us loose, or the suffocation that loneliness brings. We've all felt it. We are all struggling to deal with the isolation that quarantine prompts, as a pandemic is raging in the background, and all we can do is fight the war within ourselves. Some may bury in hobbies, while others ignore quarantine rules all together, and others focus on their social media platform. Either way, all we are doing is delaying the inevitable. Delaying what looking into ourselves may bring and finding out who we really are. Nobody wants to be alone, yet that is all we can be. It's not simple. This has been anything but a simple year. What everyone thought would be the best year of their life is just simply not. It's an entangled mess, full of controversy and hate. The thin line has been shattered between reality and what is not. People feel at a loss within themselves and there's no distraction to keep their mind from drifting into the dark. When you're alone, there's nothing and no one to stop you from committing the sinful acts you've pushed away. And there's nobody there to help you out of the murky waters your life has created. Nothing is ever simple. Quarantine is not simple. It's similar to sitting on the couch, watching t.v. while the world is on fire and it's on the brink of death. But what can you do? A conditioned corporate worker, forced to watch the cruelty that life can bring, pushing it out of your mind with labor and the same routine everyday. But, you're not anymore. Life isn't the same anymore. My life isn't the same. It's changed. The world has changed. In as little as six months my perception of how life should be has shattered. I'm forced to be alone, to feel. But, I don't want to. So, I continue and wait for fate to find me. All the while, I'm choking back on hopelessness. I've been isolated since the pandemic began. Alone and distraught. I've been forced to face my own demons and lurking shadows. Forced to see myself through a different lens, because I have nothing to distract me. The words “struggle,” and “lost” can help identify what I've been going through. It's been quiet and not even the sounds of the outside world are enough to comfort me. I crave human interaction and to feel again. Alone with my thoughts has never been ideal. I prefer the conditioned labor and routine to occupy my day. Instead, I've been doing nothing. I had started to feel numb, like my existence was insignificant in this world. But that's not true. We all play an important role in the universe, whether it's fate or our own path. We create something. History. I've realized that living in quarantine does not mark the end of your goals, or your accomplishments. Quarantine can potentially be a way to find yourself. Like how I've started to find myself through words. Words led me to self-discovery. My life used to feel meaningless and ineffective, until I found writing. It was a way to freely express myself without the judgement of the world. My words can convey hope, as well as destruction. They can convey love and hatred. However, it is all about your perception. If you allow the cruel path life has set out for you to sink you under water where you slowly suffocate and drown under disappointment then you'll never be free. You'll never be free of the conditioned life you've been taught to have since a child. What you've been trained to perceive, you can change it. Change the way you've been born to see the world and understand that your words have power to alter things. I have felt everything you have felt. Because in the end, we are not alone. We experience things together. While I may look out of my window and see a different landscape than you, we still have linked thoughts and emotions. It may not happen simultaneously, but they are shared. We empathize, sympathize, and care. That is the heart of humanity. Quarantine can be scary and lonesome, but it can also be self-serving in the fact that you can be uplifted and live your own life, if even for awhile. You don't have to succumb to the rules of everyday expectations. Instead, you get to be yourself through discovery and self-love. Learn how to empower your life and live it the way you want.