A View to Die For

Some men are crushed by the weight of the world

Some men are broadsided by the trainwrecks they love

Some men will give their all to the chance

That lightning might strike them once again

Some men brave oceans, others never learn to swim

Some men have the worst of enemies

Yet are blessed with the best of friends

Some men dig deep into their own souls

To find the parts that make them whole

Some men skid across the surface of the world

And never know the depths that remain unearthed

Some men fight tooth and nail for a chance to burn

With a passion that the world might ever spurn

Some men live fast, some men live slow

And some don't dare live at all

Some men risk all they have

For a chance that might pass in a single instant

Some men are governed by the systematic

Some men can't bend to the will of the establishment

Some men confuse wealth for riches

Some men exclude themselves from the current

Some men move against the wind, demand to feel it on their face

While some turn to let it strike their backs

Even if it turns them in the wrong direction

Some men conform at the expense of their own dreams

Some mean contort their desires to fit what they see

And never confront the horizon, never ascend the mountains

To witness the beauty beneath, beyond

Some men remain veiled in mystery

While some compile volumes that the world might read

In a single glance, that they might have the chance

To reach someone, to teach someone

Their secrets, some men see the fence

And jump, some men see the end

And run, some men reach the impassable

And wear themselves to the bone, if only to know

They tried, even if they did not succeed

They died, free as the waking dreams that come

Because they dare not sleep, they do not seek peace

But passion, they do not seek the easy or the passive

But the next feat that some men have deemed

Impossible

Some men will face the worst of the world, with the best of themselves

And every failure that has greeted them will shrink to nothing

Against the light of victory

Some men live foolishly

Dangerously

And are outcasted by society

Among those men though, know that you will find

The greatest of hearts, the strongest of minds

For they know what leaves us hollow when we lie down to sleep

I know, and for all I might face, there's hope

In every fiber of my being

Some men may be content to hide in their valley

But I will reach the highest peaks, or die trying

And if the latter comes to pass

My life will still have been complete.