There are some things in this world,
things so invisible that no one even knows they’re missing.
So invisible, the one who glimpses them, if only but for a second, thinks that he himself is a blind man.

From day one, we looked up.
Up at a god,
up at a teacher,
up at a leader, up at our superiors,
believing that we are forever in their shadow.

The scientists look up to Einstein,
the activists look up to Gandhi,
the politicians look up to Kennedy,
and the poets look up to Whitman.
No one ever bothers to ask…
What allows them to stand on higher ground?
Who built the pedestal their legacies rest upon?
Why can’t we climb the tower and look them in the eye?

I was told to follow in the footsteps of these people.
To emulate them,
to make my life theirs,
instead of laying the bricks of our own walls to climb over.

Rules do not make masterpieces,
and we learn from day one
to observe, to use a formula, to follow.

To obey the rules.

It seems invisible to me, the idea.
That maybe Einstein,
Gandhi,
Kennedy,
Whitman,
were wrong.
What if their rules don’t apply to me,
and they couldn’t and shouldn't climb my own hand-laid walls that surround me?

I will not follow in footsteps,
and I will not accept others following in mine, even if my feet are the first to conquer a mountain, the trail washed away with the flowing blood of days to come.

We learned to ignore the beaten path,
and take the one less traveled.
I shall follow the path not traveled at all, with only what I can see with my eyes and do with my hands to cut the vines and clear the path ahead,
to erase the invisible.