I've chosen to spend my life worshiping it.
I used to lay in the sun for hours and let it make me know.
I could never tell anyone what it was, because there aren't words for it.
Sometimes I'd cry because I didn't have enough power over language to explain how I felt.
And then when I grew up, after I'd acquired all these words, I finally realized that I never would.
Joy is a solitary experience for me, like pain.
Because neither can be explained to someone else who hasn't felt MINE.
I miss the me who noticed, who had time to.
My childhood was nothing but a giant discovery of the world.
Good and bad.
And at some point I had the moment when I could have chosen to let the bad spoil the good.
But something, thank god, made me see that they needed each other.
And after that all my joy broke my heart it was so big.
I want the whole world, I want to be the same as it.
Always have. Always hurts, not to be quite close enough.
But the kind of hurt that drives you to do beautiful things.
I don't think I'll ever choose a faith.
My religion is that I am alive
And that the people I love are, fragile as thistledown on the wind, and we were all blown together to the same time and place.

There's a girl in my class named Nicole, who used to act just like every other popular girl.
She wore too much eyeliner and straightened her hair and I always heard the gossip.
I saw her for what she looked like, and I stayed away because I hate the drama that follows the "popular" people like smoke.
But then her father died.
Her mom was already dead, and her father died.
Now she calls herself Cosmic Bliss and wears jeans vests.
She doesn't straighten her hair,
And the other day she got up in front of the class and read her report
And it was all about seeing the world as a gift,
And helping others,
And finding yourself through nature.
I admire her.
She lost everything, and I remember for a long time she was broken.
She didn't look broken when she read that.
I suppose it's like any other faith- has its flaws.
But people are so resilient.
I found myself clapping for her in solidarity, because hey
If your parents die and your life ***** and you get beaten down,
If you want to make flower crowns and call yourself Cosmic Bliss
And preach peace and love and crystals to your peers even when they give you funny looks,
Do it.
I will cheer for you.
I wish I was friends with her.
People do what they have to to live.
Some people.