Siddhartha in High School
Down here,
In the most materialistic and sometimes sadistic world
We are all looking
For enlightenment.

Some of us believe that we have found it in the swoosh
Of a basketball net like a dream in the bag or the
Easiness of hiding behind good grades and saying
That we have found the right path.
Those girls with money more abundant than laughter have found religion
In designer clothes, and that boy with his soul deeper than a holy-man’s eyes believes
That there is no path, and that this enlightenment must be unattainable because he has been
Beaten back so many times.
But really,
We are all still looking because there is no space
For our judgmental thoughts in any kind of illumination.

So to get on with life in this educational institution we call high school we
Wander the maze of hallways and listen inattentively to teachers teaching words in classics written by
People who said that teaching cannot lead you to enlightenment because as we all know
You have to find it by yourself.
But as we begin to reach the end of this maze that is supposedly preparing us for the outside world we
Are beginning to despair. I ask you:
Why are we learning about AIDS instead of stopping Africa from falling to pieces and how
Are we supposed to understand the great meaning in all this literature if we don’t even know
What half these words mean? Somebody told me
That we are the future and I told them
“I don’t want the future that you’re making. I don’t even know who I am.”
At times I think

That we are all just ephemeral drops in this worldly ocean,



Washing away the faintly chalked path between starvation and opulence,
Seeking, not finding the silver lining and the way over the rainbow to that pot full of happiness. Sometimes, I want to fall through the cracks.





But then, there are those words.




Sermons of hope, of peace and love and acceptance. I heard a song, Once, in the midst of all the wailing in the night, a song came burning like a candle through my window

And I thought, what if?
What if we are the future? What if one of us can find happiness within all the cynicism and what if
We were to ferry it downriver in ships of sympathy? We all know that a mindset cannot be taught but
What if we could all just try to understand that we each have a dream and a goodness to share?
Because we are all connected, we are all leaves spinning in the river as it flows out
Of the labyrinth. Our world is all one and just how enlightened are you if you choose
To keep your illumination to yourself? In time,
We all need to realize that the correct way between these walls is right down the middle,
that the only way to understand Is to really listen,

and if it’s enlightenment you seek, you’d better start diving down deep



Into your own dreaming, your own daring, doing self.