She wore a smile like a scented candle. It was warm and comforting but… too easy to extinguish. This other girl existed on one end of a knotted piece of string suspended between 2 tin cans… It was hard to reach her, and when you did, her tongue seemed as knotted as the string.
But on days where these two can’t seem to stop smiling. When their bow tie tongues make phone calls sound like miracles… we say things like..
Don’t jinx it.
When underdogs bark like poodles but bite like alpha wolves. when the up-and-coming upstarts undercut higher overseers. At the risk of burning too quickly or too brightly, we say…
Don’t jinx it.
When the meek and the naive achieve more than we perceive.
When we dream on Christmas eve of what we may receive.
When we say things like ‘We’ve been through worse… she won't leave’.
we say…
Don’t jinx it.
The human condition demands so much caution and fear, we shed tears and rub our eyes till all we can see is the least of what we can be and we… live like slaves to the thing that stole our confidence away… ourselves. Somewhere down the line or self belief was found K.I.A so when we try something new, we’re already D.O.A.
So when we play pika-boo with our power, appear like a shower of rain in a desert when you’d already chosen dehydration as your only way out, we dare to tell ourselves, don’t jinx it.
Ladies and gents, boys and girls, you don’t have to rule the world. You don’t have to cure a disease or discover new species or banish hatred from the hearts of man or travel the and experience sights and scenes that only in your wildest dreams did you think you’d see. You don’t have to do a single thing!
But you can do anything.
When Martin Luther King said Let freedom ring, he didn’t fear jinxing a single thing.
And when the Beatles sang love is all you need they weren’t deceived by the forethought that their song wouldn’t be well received. They believed that they could plant the seed that would lead this musical scene into places unseen.
They believed that all you need is love. That they had the stuff to turn lyrics into legends. They wrote songs so deeply entrenched into our musical history... you’d need a yellow submarine to find them all and… they didn’t care about what they jinxed along the way.
They held their hearts like David held his sling when Goliath told him he was too small, and so should we all, we should stand taller than our legs can and every man or woman who said you can’t you, you shouldn’t will fall! Fall silent like when the voices in your head are all in agreement and are screaming yes!
Confidence is a bag of marbles with a hole in it. You’ve got to think back to where you’ve been to find it again. But whether you’re happy with your marbles, still looking for those you’ve lost or if you lost them entirely… we can share. We’ll stir sweet smiles into your coffee, stitch compliments into your clothes and we’ll garnish every plate and bowl with the untold hope that you’ll believe in yourself.
Like I believe you. Because I do believe in you… and I won't jinx it.