The clouds get darker every day

and the sun finds new ways to hide away.

God sends earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods,

fires that destroy everything that we love.

The embers burn brightly and we come together,

standing with hands linked. Our love is our shelter,

and I can only wonder if this is what He meant

to create disaster so that’d we repent.

We only heal when we’ve been broken.

We only cry when the wrong words are spoken,

but I think it’s beautiful that we’re learning to

cry like a waterfall at the happy things too.

Let the tears flow and the troubles fade

as we watch new beginnings come our way.

Weddings, birthdays, graduations, and more—

we cry, cry like babies, until we can’t anymore.

We read beautiful books, let the pages crinkle and fade.

We jump in the puddles and dance in the rain.

We make dandelion wishes and buttercup predictions.

We know our days are numbered and we are already missing

the days when we were younger

and the days that we were free,

when mistakes didn’t matter

and our world was drawn out with chalk on the street.

We knew we had it good, but it wasn’t until now

that I realized I didn’t need to be older to figure it all out.

You can only move forward, but you can always look back

at the colorful kites in the sky and the hot sand on the beach,

and be ready to take a little hand with you as you walk that path again

with the next generation that comes our way, ready to take it all in.

I’m only a quarter of the way through this life,

not even that, at seventeen,

and I’ve already got a good idea

of where we’re heading to.