I promise

To my brothers in arms,

I call today, to speak to you as an equal. Not in distress and not in joy. But in the sheer spirit of respect. I call today to welcome you into a world that I have only just discovered. Into a world in which I am but an infant. The world of men.

A world where every man stands on his own two feet. A world where responsibility is not a chore but the breath in our lungs making our chests swell with pride. A world where class isn't accquired or sought after or put on, but lived. I call today from a place my fathers and fore-fathers have wished me to see. I call today for I have learnt the meaning of friendship.

I speak as a friend, as a brother, as an equal.

I speak today with a certain hope in my heart. With promises to keep and lives to live.

To awake each morning with a sense of purpose. To treat each man as I wish to be treated. To laugh, but laugh only with a heart so light, that it may fill the room with an air of truth. To never speak without concern and without respect for each word that is being said. To listen with an intensity that the speaker has merited. To write, with a clean precision that the written word deserves. To bow to courage, a virtue so seldom seen. To love with complete abandon, irrespective of the hurt it may cause.

To live deep, to write verses in powerful plays, to suck the marrow of life.

I promise.