The Compass of Your Soul

**I. The Map of Beginnings**

Listen, child, the world is wide,

A stormy sea, a rising tide.

No ready path, no golden lane,

Just sun and dust, and joy and pain.

But hold this truth inside your heart:

*Your life’s a map—you’ll choose the part.*

The north may call, the south may gleam,

Yet every step will shape the dream.

**II. The Weight of Words**

The tongue is both a sword and salve,

It builds a bridge or digs a grave.

So measure well what you let fly,

For words, once loosed, will never die.

They’ll haunt the halls of time and space,

A cruel jest or sweet embrace.

Speak kindness like a sacred verse,

Or choke upon the curse you nurse.

**III. The Fire of Failure**

You’ll stumble hard—oh, yes, you’ll fall,

And bitter winds will freeze your crawl.

But embers glow beneath the ash,

And failure’s but the thunder’s clash.

Each scar you earn, each fractured bone,

Is just a seed for strength you’ll own.

So rise again, though shadows loom,

For brightest blooms crack through the tomb.

**IV. The Chains of Gold**

Beware the gilded traps you’ll find,

Where hollow wealth will rot the mind.

They’ll sell you clocks to count your days,

While life, unspent, dissolves in haze.

No purse of gold can buy the moon,

Or mend a love betrayed too soon.

*The richest men are those who see

That time’s the only currency.*

**V. The Mirror’s Gaze**

When dawn arrives with judging light,

And ghosts of choices stalk the night,

You’ll face the face you’ve shaped with years—

A portrait drawn in laughs and tears.

So sculpt yourself with patient hands,

Plant gardens where you burned the lands.

For in the end, you’ll surely meet

The stranger that you chose to be.

**VI. The Dance of Shadows**

They’ll whisper that the dark is vile,

A thief of hope, a serpent’s guile.

But shadows prove the sun exists,

And pain’s the clay compassion fists.

Embrace the night, its velvet weight,

For stars are born in depths of fate.

The blackest ink may write the tale

That saves a soul too frail to sail.

**VII. The Final Tide**

One day, you’ll stand where oceans end,

And count the years you chose to spend.

Not trophies won nor battles loud,

But love you gave, and lives you bowed.

So sail your ship with courage true,

Let kindness be the wind you woo.

*For all that lives must fade to dust,

But how you shone is all you must.*