“Alive”: A Poem About Living in the Present

It is possible to get through every day without really living any of them. You wake up, work, eat and sleep, and the weeks blur together. Jonathan Anthony Burkett’s poem “Alive,” from his memoir Neglected But Undefeated (2012), asks a blunt question about that kind of life, and it does not let the reader, or the poet, off the hook.

The poem

Are you alive?
Prove it
Do you sing along with the music?
Dance to the beat?
Clap to give thanks?
I already know
I don’t, I sit still
With my hands balled up
Are you alive?
Do you run into your lover’s arms?
Or do you just hug them?
Do you kiss with passion?
Or do you just kiss
Would you rather to sit in the darkness?
Or sit in light
Where everyone can see you?
I don’t
Are you alive?
Do you wake up with a smile?
Or do you wake up with the words
Another day
I don’t
Do you think more about your past?
Or do you live more in the present
While working towards a brighter future.
I don’t
Now the big question
Do you consider yourself a blessing or just another person?

— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Neglected But Undefeated (2012)

Where “Alive” was written

Jonathan wrote “Alive” in April 2003, when he was sixteen. He was sitting at a bus stop under a streetlight with a pen and a composition book, at a time when he often had nowhere to sleep. He had been thinking about how many working adults complained about their pay and how they were treated, and he found himself wondering whether they even had a life.

So he began to write. He kept writing through the night, until the streetlight went off and he knew the sun was coming up.

That setting gives the poem its weight. These are not questions from someone who has everything figured out. They come from a teenager who was struggling to find reasons to smile, and who was honest enough to ask himself the same questions he was asking everyone else.

The honest “I don’t”

The most striking thing about “Alive” is how often the speaker answers against himself. “I already know / I don’t, I sit still / With my hands balled up.” Then again and again: “I don’t.”

It would have been easy to write a poem that only challenged other people. Instead, the speaker admits he is not doing the things he is asking about. He does not sing along. He does not wake up with a smile. He hears himself say “Another day.”

There is courage in that. You cannot change what you will not admit. Saying “I don’t” is not the end of the story. It is often the first honest step toward a different one.

Questions worth asking yourself

The poem works almost like a self-check. Read it slowly and answer each line for yourself:

• Do you let joy move you? Singing along, dancing, clapping in thanks. Or do you sit still with your hands balled up?
• Do you love fully? Running into someone’s arms is different from a polite hug. Kissing with passion is different from just a kiss.
• Do you hide or let yourself be seen? Sitting in the light, where everyone can see you, takes more courage than staying in the dark.
• How do you start your day? With a smile, or with the tired words “Another day”?
• Where does your mind live? In the past, or in the present while you work toward a brighter future?

There are no grades here. The point is to notice where you have gone numb, and to choose one place to come back to life. You might even write your own answers down, the way Jonathan wrote his questions, and read them again in a month.

Living in the present while building the future

One line in the poem is especially balanced: “Or do you live more in the present / While working towards a brighter future.” It does not ask you to forget your goals. It asks you not to spend all your time looking backward.

Jonathan had a lot of past to carry. Yet on his nineteenth birthday in 2006, two days after brain surgery, he decided to look at that day as though he had been given “a new year, a new life, and a new me.” He also promised himself he would focus on success and not on the past. In the introduction to his memoir, he puts his answer to the poem’s question plainly: “Today, I believe that life is an adventure to be enjoyed.”

The teenager at the bus stop said “I don’t.” The man who wrote the book found a different answer. That change did not happen overnight, but it did happen.

The big question

The poem ends by stepping back from all the smaller questions: “Do you consider yourself a blessing or just another person?” It is a question about worth. How you see yourself shapes how you live, how you love and whether you let yourself enjoy anything at all.

If your honest answer today is “just another person,” you are not alone, and it does not have to stay that way. The way you answer can change as your life changes, just as Jonathan’s did. Start small: one song you sing out loud, one hug you give fully, one morning you greet with gratitude instead of dread.

If life feels too heavy to carry right now, please reach out. If you are thinking about suicide, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, U.S.).

Read the full story behind “Alive” in Jonathan’s memoir on the Books page, and find more of his words on the Quotes page.

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