Letter To My Younger Self

I remember

when you were young and wide eyed

excited at the possibility of the world

and afraid because it was all so big and you,

you were the smallest creature in a forest full of monsters

still, you had big dreams and wanted

so badly to write something

so unique and profound

something to make people understand you

understand themselves

see that we are all one

know that we all bleed the same

slippery shades of water color

even if the canvas is is different

Fear is an ugly thing and overshadows

and overwhelms, *******

the life out of life

and the colors out of the rainbow that

is supposed to shine overhead and keep

the bad the things at bay

it crawls into bed with you at night and

keeps you awake, drilling

everything that is wrong

straight through your skull and

into your soul like a

woodpecker, never ceasing

never letting you rest

there is so much that is so hard

to comprehend and make sense of

and it is so much easier to let the fear

take hold of you, wrap it's fingers

tightly around your neck

a noose growing ever tighter, strangling

while you struggle until

you have no voice left to speak

It left you choking

out fragments

and run-on sentences into a journal

that no one would ever see

that still makes me burn when

I flip through those pages reliving

the story of my life that you wrote

all those years ago

I remember

when you thought that no one could see you,

so you lived your life like a child

jumping up to see over the counter,

making make-shift ladders out of whatever

you could find so that you could grasp

everything that always seemed so far above your reach,

losing yourself so easily

in a sea of people

because they were so big

and you were

nothing

You words are a time capsule

that bring me back to a place when

when we stared at each other in the mirror

and curled our tiny fingers into a fist

wanting to smash the glass

because

we were ugly

But my words are a time machine,

my gift to you from the future

You are small still,

but the world is not as big as it used to be

and nothing ever comes easy

but your dreams are coming true,

you did not give up despite

believing so often that you would fail and

you are making a difference

I am afraid

because

everyone is afraid, but

I stand in front of the mirror

young and wide-eyed,

excited about the possibility of the world

and when I look at you now, I know

that we are learning to love each other

finally.

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