The Hardest Things

The hardest things I’ve done;

Are a collection of choices.

A confrontation of challenges.

A chronicle of changes.

That marks me.

Like rocks on tempered glass.

Their presence, a period.

Powerful, percussive, points.

Punctuating the passage of self

With striated indentations.

Pivots around inflection points leaving demarcations.

These divots deeply define my direction;

Like a line learning to bend

Without breaking at the blemish.

Easier to visualize endpoints, and

Exist on either side of the mark than

Go through and grow through.

Hard things leave scars. Sometimes I trace them –

Every choice, challenge, and change.

Deeper ones stay with me; because

Adversity teaches the lessons

Joy only theorizes.