Before you know what courage really is,
you must first know fear,
feel the icy whisper of dread scrape it’s talons down your spine
like pages of your childhood books being shredded one by one.

Before you learn the power of courage,
you must float alone at the edge of the earth,
with nothing
to keep you from tumbling but a single red balloon with a needle poised above it,
the only sound the
tick tick
tick tick
of the clock
reminding you of how little time you have left.

Before you know courage as the most important thing,
you must wake up blind in an unfamiliar place with fear oozing out of your pores,
filling the room until you can no longer remember what it was like
to not breath in fear with every desperate gasp.

Then it is only courage that makes sense anymore,
only courage keeping you from wasting precious seconds
clutching a balloon at the edge of the world, 
only courage that crawls out of the cobwebs and slips into your pocket
and radiates light.