I was dazed and confused, and it hit me so hard I could feel every hair stand up on my neck, perhaps trying to escape just as I wanted to in that moment.

But I didn’t. Perhaps deep down inside I was thinking that I would just wake up, waiting for that moment of fresh air, that deep breath of relief and comfort knowing that it was all just a nightmare…

 But where did the time go. It wasn’t there, because time froze and everyone knows that when time freezes, you lose track of reality and who you’re really suppose to be, because your too fucking busy with your head in the clouds dreaming that serendipity is gonna sweep you off your feet and set your soul free from the confinement of what the world thinks.

The world will indeed sweep you off your feet, but keep you down instead, and maybe kick you in the head or break a spleen just for the fuck of it.  

Or maybe to wake you up from it.

Wake you up from the thought of hope, but that’s the one thing you gotta keep and you better hold on to it.

The world, just like you and I, was born one day, but another it will die…

Hope is innate and lies within the eyes of fear, which is in all of us, so in all of us there is hope, you just gotta dig deep inside to find it and hold on to it, for fuck’s sake hold onto it and take some pride in your life because we are all greater than this world, not greater than each other.

 Because really we’re all sisters and brothers under the name of humanity, but us humans can’t see past our selfish needs because all society wants is for us to get on our knees at the world’s feet.

But I will not. You can beat me all you want but I am greater than this world, because in my soul I am hope.

I am innovation.

 I am change.

I am an outlier in society, but I am me.

The face of humanity, the face of change.

I am fear’s worst enemy because I dare to stand up against it, which is way more than what anyone else can be.

No more running, no more fear, no more destruction in my life.

No more.

Because I am hope…. I am the new face of society.

                                                                                                                        ~ Nathaniel Joaquin Contreras