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.