After "How To Be a Person"

I wrote this for an assignment in my English class. We listened to a spoken word poem, "How To Be a Person" by Shane Koyczan, and the assignment was to write a 5-stanza poem inspired by it, about how we can be better people this year.

i. love simply. 
notice the little things —
the sweep of hair after a gentle tilt of the head, 
eye meeting eye in the midst of a thunderous crowd,
a hand’s sigh as it drops to the side. 
love does not have to be grand
or extravagant. 
learn to love people as they come. 

ii. welcome passion. 
do not let sentiment become an Achilles’ heel. 
feel freely, feel dramatically, feel painfully, and feel fully. 
let the world change your mind and let people hurt you;
scream and cry and shout if you need to.
you will be all the better for it.  

iii. be a poet. 
see the beauty in life
despite all its fractured pieces 
and learn to accept them. 
stay up until the moon turns into a yellowish haze 
and time seems effortless:
let the world wash over you. 

iv. read good literature.
do not waste time on meaningless stories. 
learn to live life as another person and struggle through their challenges,
learn to travel through time and adapt. 
envelop yourself in words.

v. understand that death is inevitable. 
it is impossible to prolong a person’s life in hopes that they will return to who they once were. 
memories will fade, lungs and languages will break. 
you will not know what to say or how to say goodbye. 
it is not your responsibility
to mend a broken heart.