Why?

You peruse me

A sneering grin

Evil glint in eye

Condescension personified

Ready to tear down

My very foundations.

 

Why, you ask,

Why do you believe there’s good in the world?

 

The world is not a vampire

It is a cold calculator

Without need or emotion or thought

it just is

 

People are not sheep

They are wolves in sheep’s clothing

Waiting only for night to fall

Before ripping at each other’s throats

 

Because you are young and blind

To the rotten core of this world?

 

Is it because your life is smooth

As silk and sweet as sugar?

 

Is it because you could not bear to know these things

Without wanting to die?

 

Because you were told?

 

Because you had no other choice?

 

No, I say to you.

Because

Lilacs bloom outside my house

During the springtime, and the fragrance

Wafts into my room like a long lost sister.

 

Because when sunlight strikes the ocean

It scintillates and shines brighter than

Any solid thing.

 

Because our basketball team

Won four State Championships in a row.

 

Because there is a library five seconds

Down the stairs from my room, ten if I feel lazy.

 

Because my family let me believe in

Dragons until I was twelve years old.

 

Because a career exists that is

Solely devoted to making people laugh.

 

Because the oxygen flowing freely and invisibly

All around you could become part of your children.

 

Because everyone dreams of a better world,

Even if that world isn’t their own.

 

Not because these things have

Inherent beauty but

Because

I look up at the night sky

Thousands of pinpricks of light

Each one a star

Thousands of light years away

Which obscures another thousand

Stars another million, billion, trillion

Gazillion light years away

 

And witnessing the vastness of the universe

I do not cower and quake in fear, I revel

In the beauty of infinite possibility.

 

I wonder. I am in awe

And maybe something was lost

When ‘wonderful’ and ‘awesome’

came to mean ‘great’ and when

‘Great’ became ‘good’ and when

‘Good’ became ‘something that

Benefits ourselves’

 

Because I can tell you that

The Universe is a

Wonderful

Awesome

Great

Good

Place, but it is not always

To our benefit.

 

Because in a world so mind-blowingly

Large it must be the tiny things that matter the most.

 

Because I recognize beauty

That has nothing to do

With my own survival.

 

Yet once again you say

“Why do you believe in good?”

 

I’ll make the answer simple this time.

Because of love.

 

The love I receive?

No-

The love I give back.