what have we learned charlie brown in poetry

You gotta make your peace before you go to pieces.
If not for them then your own damn sake.
You cannot infinitely indefinitely
carry that weight.
Something will break.
And you are something.

Do not overthink.
Do not obsess.
Worry only confuses your heart
it does not bring out your best.
Don’t waste your focus on things you can’t control
or on safeguarding against longshot disasters.
That’s the path to madness.
That’s a path to hell faster.

Unclutter your mind.
Reject all of this externally applied stress.
You are not what you own.
You are not how you dress.
You are not your paycheck.
You are not how many things you get done before nine AM.
You are not a series of tasks
you are a family member
a voice
a lover
a friend.
The idea that we do good work under pressure
is a trick that The Bastards play on us to make us fail.
They want you running scared.
They want you thinking conservatively
reactive fractured reductive redacted
afraid and
afraid and
afraid and
hateful like an animal
so that you won’t notice
while they hoard all the stuff.

A clear mind gets to the long-term solutions.
A scared mind generates short-term survival vectors
that work for a fraction
but make the future problems worse.
They only compound the hurt.

Fear sometimes keeps you alive
but fear also makes your life not worth living.
Fuck fear
now is the time
for growing and forgiving.
Go with joy instead
and you have a better chance of out-thinking the manufactured horror shows.
Don’t go with your gut
go with what you know
use your heart
use your head
and don’t forget to breathe.
Oxygen and time
what they’ll steal
what you need
don’t be unmade.
Think
unafraid.

Fear’s the only real weapon that they have
to keep this whole show fucked up
so they can keep this so bad
so that they can continue
to wallow
in avarice.
Disconnect.
Take a breath.
And take your sweet time.
Use your words
sometimes rhyme.
But you don’t have to.