Somewhere stuck between the line bordering
faith and reality,
there is a girl.
A girl to whom
there is no such thing
as five thirty in the morning.
There are only beginnings,
fresh grass, and
mugs of hot chocolate.
She doesn’t seem to know
what it means to drag your feet
or to
lifelessly slide your toothbrush’s bristles
against the cracks and crevices of your teeth,
wishing you were already at the end of the day
when it had only just begun.
To her,
every printed word is spoken.
She can hear the pages breathe and her heart sings whenever
another character enters,
because for her it means
one more person
to love
which is something
she never seems to run out of.
It is why her eyes dance
and roses grow ‘round her face,
it is why gladness
pours out from her fingers as they
glide across ivory keys,
it is why she sprinkles her words with salt,
why she refuses to let her city on a hill grow dim,
why she believes that death
is a new beginning,
why her hope never wavers,
why she won’t stop giving and
giving and
giving.
Her faith shakes mountains, but sometimes,
only the mountains know it because she
gets frustrated, too.
I’m here to tell her that she
may not see it now,
but the seeds have been growing in places
she didn’t think possible.
So continue to plant them
with thrill and with wonder,
as you live each day like
it was the first.
Don’t stop the water’s flow,
and soon you will find yourself
laughing at Doubt’s face,
I don’t think you’ve ever seen
Doubt’s face.
You’ve been alive
for three hundred
and sixty five days more,
but if growing up means
losing the fireworks in your eyes
and the beautiful thoughts
that sprout from your mind
then,
I beg of you,
don’t.
An 18th birthday gift for a beautiful friend.