Buttercup baby
Won’t you blossom slowly?
Your chin a sweet sunflower petal,
your glossy pores so smooth

I’m losing your little feet in the weeds,
to the fields of green where
you run and you run and you run
chasing escaped balloons and the rising sun

You will find handwritten notes
in the slits of your locker
from your best friend:
scribbled gibberish and sketches of your crush
and they’ll make you laugh
and forget that failed test

You will feel pain under your kneecaps
knit from youth
and awaken lightheaded from a new height,
pain within the deep veins of your heart
you didn’t even know existed, and
that best friend may call you a *****
for no valid reason
Your lover may break your heart
and leave your waters to glimmer wavy
left lonely with a scarlet enragement
Sensations that you can’t explain without
collapsing to pieces and weeping

but you are only human
Lighten your laughter and float away on a wooden raft
and speak to the dreamy moon of a place for good souls
(and good food)

Don’t lose hope in the holes of the universe
I, too, was convinced it all to be nonsense:
A love to love and be loved in return…

You will learn there are other humans that make up this earth,
other humans that love this earth
and plant the ground with tender enchantment
much like your uncle singing you to sleep

Buttercup baby
Won’t you hum your honey tune?
Sculpt your sun kissed skin into you and
shimmy through a heart shaped hula-hoop