Thank you, all poets, philosophers and anarchists of the night. Thank you to colorful leaves falling from trees — colors that I dare not name because doing so would diminish the beauty they bestow upon me.
Thank you, breakfasts of granola and green tea, almond milk and corn flakes, gourds of yerba mate. And when necessary, that thick brown cup of coffee giving the quick caffeine high. Thank you, dinners of red beans and rice, eaten with chips and chop sticks I picked up in San Francisco during my Chinatown trip.
Thank you, sleep — I may only get four hours a night, but whenever you greet me with dreams, my eyes are wide open even as they look idly at peace.
Thank you, cold bicycle rides at night, cold fog and mist that sometimes make poems write themselves, but then disappear by the time I get home — never remembered and when I write them, they never come out the way they were supposed to.
Thank you, barely manageable school schedule, thank you for that Wednesday of tai chi chuan followed by rock climbing on concrete walls with colorful jibs and holds, and that red dragonfly inexplicably engraved in the wall as if to remind me there are thousands of other rock faces outside.
Thank you to everyone who avoids using paper cups every time they need a coffee fill up. Thank you, Dumpster diver people, scavenging to reclaim food, then turning it into a meal to feed anyone in need. Thank you, to those who stop and think to practice cultivating conversation over convenience.
Thank you to forest defenders, latter day loraxes speaking for the trees, the very trees that compose this paper you read.
Thank you for resistance — in any form — to these cyclical and destructive cultural norms. If Resistance were a child, she would just be born. Thank you, to those who dare not conform to what “society” sometimes pushes on us, like a drug, selling false consciousness for thoughtless profit and the cheap buck. Thank you, to those who raise their voices past the noise of chaos, hopelessness and despair we encounter everywhere, to breathe some sense and innocence back into a life that can still be beautiful — it’s not too late. Thank you to those that don’t buy the internalization of a consumer culture that turns its back to humanity, a culture that creates false needs, insists we modify our bodies, wage war on each other and within our own minds. Thank you to those who resist this culture cultivated with desensitized acts of violence.
Thank you to those who know that youth doesn’t come from some fashion magazine, it isn’t a style, a trend, and doesn’t merely fade with the addition of years. Youth is a state of mind you can always find, no matter what your appearance is on the outside. Thank you to those who are shy, to those who cry, and to those who realize you die a thousand times even as you’re alive.
Thank you to enemies, thank you to friends. Thank you to the nameless people I encounter walking through campus. Especially those with heads help up high and the ones that look you in the eyes. Thank you to glances that don’t need words, that speak for themselves. Thank you to strangers, thank you to rebels, and to those I have not yet met — those who will make a change in my life that is permanent. But speaking of permanence, all is impermanent, so thank you to anyone who can stop in the midst of school’s insanity to remember this; to bring themselves into the moment and be grateful for it. Because it’ll never come again.
Thank you to understanding the intention behind this. Thanksgiving isn’t just one day a year — don’t you know it never ends? It never ends, it never ends, it never ends…