Double-Take Time Poem by Amanda Swindahl

If it was up to me, time would run away, No more punishing. We could be free to live without such a concept, it manipulates, it defys, it saddens, and it shames. What is living if we are always rushed, what is living if we are always fast forwarding, never doubletake the moment, to only let it sink in when its to late. If it was up to me, disaster and sickness wouldnt be counted down on how many days before we die, but be granted and welcomed to how many days we have left to live. Life wouldnt be a number, no concept, it would be lived by the heart and however long it feels like living. If it was up to me, we would all learn to run free with our heads above the water, Through the depths we so choose to walk, we would keep them out of the clouds and never look back. We would never look down on, or feel walked over. If it was up to me, beauty would come without shame. It would come without a name, It would come without those fancy unwritten rules, it would come without reason, it would just be. It would know nothing of the fake and all we fail to see, we pardon reality and all the things we are told to believe, but what if we could learn to see everything of the simplistic little things. It would be a candid photo, it would be a dying flower, it would be a world of color, a world that knows nothing of black or white, it wouldnt be fabricated with wrong and right. If it was up to me, Love would forever be known without a gender, without a race, no color, no fear. Love would come without pace, a sudden beat that sinks in. We would never ration what it is we really feel, we would love to the extreme, through the weak, it would never be unknown. If it was up to me, we would know nothing of happily ever afters and broken hearts. I wish everyone could see, and remember to never stop believeing that its okay to love, its okay to hold on, its okay to never let go and always remember. Its not about how you recover, and if you will ever love again, its about how that person touched your heart. Its all about the time that tamed your heart and struck you to the core, and at its every moment it never let you down, because it was something real. It was that one something thing that lives on in so many ways, and our existance doesnt take away, make or break the memories we leave behind us, for it is a living epidemic the only thing that matters is two hearts risked everything to skip a beat and beat as one.
-Amanda Swindahl