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It's All Worth Living For

by Levi The Poet

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about

On August 28, 2017, I asked a question:

"Would you send me a video you've taken that acts as a reminder for why life is worth living?"

In the days that followed, hundreds of people submitted their memories. Their reasons. Bits and pieces of life that attest to its beauty, and each person's answer in the form of cell phone footage as captured in the moments that were worth it....

Read all about It's All Worth Living For on the TWLOHA website:

lyrics

please stay.

i just had the most godawful cup of coffee

i’ve ever had in my life.

you’ve got to try it.

i drank it at a local diner

charging specialty prices

like they didn't buy it from Costco three weeks ago

in bulk, "New 3 lb. Size!" Folger's tubs

– not cans, tubs –

plastic versions of the ones

my great-grandfather used to spit in

when I was a kid,

boasting "Mountain Grown Quality since 1850,"

his: half full of saliva and cancer

whose threats amounted to little more than

minced words

when dementia beat his gums to the punch.

look – eventually –

we're all going to have to leave.

but slow down, stay a while.

let's not force it.

gg used to shuffle down the hallway

through shag carpet that

covered the house with tentacles,

or a twelve-hundred square foot trampoline.

like jesus (the only name he never used in vain)

gliding over storms to take his friend's hand,

the old man would float around the corner and

high-five the grandkids

with a thin-lipped grin like,

"child, you have no idea what life is."

i want to find out.

we had to jump

to reach his hand,

and the smack of our skin sounded

like a pop-tab cracking

into the morning Budweiser he'd drink

as religiously as you'd sip a cup of coffee

at 7 am.

he's all beautiful and

weathered and leather-skinned like maybe

gutting so much of that dip throughout the years

finally began challenging just how much

a body can tolerate before it starts to break down.

i know you ask yourself the same question all of the time.

spit it out.

you're still here.

i'm still here.

and still may be as much of a miracle as

here ever was in the first place,

so let's not waste it.

we're still here to make a memory, today,

trying to cover up the taste

with cinnamon and mocha powder –

neither of which quite get the burn out –

but we know how that goes:

you've got enough experience with people

trying to tame solar flares with band aids to know that

sprinkling

platitudes

onto the scars

on your arms

will not be enough to convince someone that life is beautiful,

but perhaps the wonder of another human being

actually subjecting himself to drink this

for the sake of being in your presence will.

anyway, i'll tell you all about him if you want,

but this cup of coffee:

god, it's horrible! – you've got to try it.

i want to hear about your family.

tell me about your great-grandfather

and how he got through the Great Depression

and tell me how you'll get through yours.

this moment is a part of it.

breathe.

i want to high-five my son's son wearing whatever vintage is 65 years from now,

with beauty and pain and wonder and presence written into the

fault lines all over my face like,

"i have made my mistakes and

the.

earthquakes.

are.

real.

but they shape you

and the ravines created

are gorgeous places to

let the sun cast its shadows through."

we can hold one another's hand in the process.

i'll let you squeeze until mine breaks if you must,

but don't let go.

tell me about the love of your life

and what color her eyes are,

and whether the tint seems to change

depending upon what she's wearing that day.

my wife's fluctuate between

special dark

and

milk chocolate

and she

is

worth

living

for.

"please stay."

i know you need ears to hear that kind of thing and

i know that those kinds of ears are miracles.

i know it's not as simple as being committed

to either life or death

but i know that there is still breath

in both of our lungs so while there's still time

to say it:

"please stay."


stay for the wedding.

i swear the first glimpse of her

rounding the corner like a dream

transforms you into nothing and everything

all at the same time.

stay for the reception.

for toasts from friends

whose lives are better off with you

but willing

to subject themselves to the small deaths

that all of us experience

when we have to forego our jealousy

and let the lover in.

stay for the wedding night.

all

awkward

and

glorious

and

vulnerable

and

naked

and

unashamed

and

painful

and

empty

and

full

and

imperfect

and

absolutely perfect

like the dichotomies you are

and always have been

like two

becoming

something

else.

stay for the fights.

they're devastating and necessary and

if you're able to temper the moment then

i will be the lightening rod you'll need to strike

over a cup of bad, overpriced diner coffee

at 4 a.m.

when the couch springs

are stabbing you in the back,

or simply stabbing you back.

i won't say a word unless you want me to.

stay for forgiveness in the morning,

after the sun has gone down on your anger,

or your sadness,

or your wanton abandon,

and mercy still finds

you when he peeks his head

over the mountains to the east.

stay for every memory

we'll embellish around the dinner table

until it becomes legend –

not quite the way it happened

but certainly not a lie –

memorialized and floral,

the way that fiction gets at truths like laughter

when we tell the stories year after year,

and they grow and we're all sure that,

"yes, as a matter of fact,

it did rain literal cats and dogs

during our darkest nights"

and we thought god was gory

but they're all grace now and life is movement

and we are healing and breaking

and making and being made

all of the time.

this coffee tastes like the bad action movies

that my dad used to love.

i imagine him –

whose absense i feel

every time DC introduces another Clark Kent

who will never quite be Christopher Reeves –

gulping this mud down

and calling it something absurd like,

"delicious,"

had he accepted the invitation.

like the way i loved to help him

light the pilot

beneath the hot water heater

in the house we grew up in.

legend.

she needs you.

he needs you.

they need you.

we need you.

i need you.

please stay.

find what you were made for.

i just had the most godawful cup of coffee

i’ve ever had in my life,

you've got to try it.

it's all worth living for.

it tastes like a morning liturgy,

and my great-grandfather's high fives.

don't forget that there are voices on the outside of your head, too,

and they sound like

futures

and

carrying the love that you told me about through the front door of your first home together

and

hopes

and

camping with your friends making you to eat the worm at the bottom of some mezcal bottle that you didn't care for

and

dreams

and

hiking the Blue Trail through coastal towns in Northern Italy and stopping for bread and wine that costs less than water

and

music

and

tucking your daughter into bed at night the first time she moves out of your room and into her big girl bed

and

love

and

parking tickets

and

love

and

replacing light bulbs in the bathroom

and

love

and

the promotion you've been working toward

and

love

and

being let go

and

love

and

holding your friends close when they're breaking into pieces

and

love

and

friends holding you close when you're breaking into pieces

and

love

and

atrocious cups of coffee and everything that we have to tell one another about where we came from and where we want to go

and

love

and

all of the help needed to get there

and

love

and

being loved

and

love

and

love

and

love

and

love

and

love.

I just drank the most godawful cup of coffee I've ever had in my life...

do you want to try it?

credits

released September 13, 2017
Poem: Levi Macallister
Editor & Fine-Tuner Of Words: Julia Fitzhugh
Vocal Production: Andy Othling
Music: Alex Sugg / Glowhouse

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all rights reserved

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about

Levi The Poet Albuquerque, New Mexico

Writer and storyteller. Everything is a gift.

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