You Can't Halfway Jump

All four of these come from one stretch of 2024 — my last summer at Camp Rockmont, where I'd spent eight years as a camper and was back for my second summer on staff, and the first fall after it. Everything that year had the same shape: an ending I could see coming, a next stage I couldn't see at all, and the growing understanding that you don't get to ease into either one. Commit, endure, savor the ending, accept the unknown — that's the order they sit in here, and it's more or less the order the year taught them to me.

Paradise Falls is a real place, a cliff-jumping spot in North Carolina. I'm terrified of heights, and I actually jumped — shaking from head to toe, exactly like the poem says. But it was never only about the cliff. That summer was about having to fully commit to whatever came next in life without knowing what it was, and standing on that edge was the closest physical thing to how that felt. The poem came before the song, but the same jump ended up in both.

Light at the End of the Tunnel is about resilience — keeping on doing what you think is right regardless of the situation, even when the thing you were promised at the end stops being visible. It's also built to be read in reverse; going backward, it might just be getting easier.

Enjoy These Last Moments repeats its own title the way the phrase got repeated at me. "Enjoy this while you're young" gets said constantly, and the grass is always greener, so the last moments keep on happening. The repetition is the point — fight for every moment so it's the best it can be, and think about what you want to leave behind.

Souls came after reading Cicero on living and dying well, which has a bit about souls. Stepping back far enough, life is absurd, and there's a lot no one knows. This one is my acceptance of that.

Paradise Falls

You know you have to jump Easier said than done What if there's rocks, a tree, a stump Making the water below not fun You look over the edge Shaking from head to toe Making yourself take a pledge It'd be better if you'd just go You can't halfway jump You have to commit to one If you stay you're a chump If you go you'll have won You jump Then you're at the bottom Feeling so pumped And you almost waited until autumn

Hear the CarsickYak cover of this one

Light at the End of the Tunnel

The light at the end of the tunnel I know what I'm supposed to do Not even a second is trouble I just have to make it through The light is getting smaller I might be able to squeeze out If only I wasn't taller But at least I'm devout The light is gone But at least I have the tunnel Taking step after step This might take a while I can't see I don't know if I'm right But I'm still trying I'm still trying

Enjoy These Last Moments

Enjoy these last moments Don't let goodbyes give you a fright Enjoy these last moments But don't go quietly into the night Enjoy these last moments Try with all your might Enjoy these last moments Though the end skews your sight Enjoy these last moments The days go by fast Enjoy these last moments Today's now your last Have you decided what rules to abide? Have you left the world signed? What is on the other side? What do you leave behind?

Souls

What keeps a human going Other than its blood flowing? Souls are the answer given by most Which to them I would give a toast Created by conception or always there? Does it have to do with the way we care? Are they malleable, ranging, Or spiritually unchanging? No one knows.