I am a knight
Every morning I get up and put on my armour
I NEVER forget to put it on. You see this armour, was created by MY mother.
Her heart and soul went into it.
You see my mother, she’s what you call overprotective. So the minute she knew I was a girl her delicate hands began working on my armor.
The helmet was made out distressed book pages, everything from Tolstoy to Poe. Book pages where melted in the metal swimming in silver because she said her daughter was smart, her daughter will always read between the lines and look before she leaps. She told me, if the jump is too far don’t walk away, build a bridge. Gather mud and meadow grass, travel to the Milky Way take some stardust and use it as glue, you can do anything, I believe in you. The helmet went, left, right, southeast southwest but never North. Because she knew there’d be gullible goblins that would test me, she knew I often believed that people write on ceilings, and my flip flops are untied, she made sure, early on, that they couldn’t trick me off my track no matter how hard they tried
MY mother built the arms when I was 6, she told me we were given arms for a reason, to appreciate the ability we had to use them and to pick up my clothes and fold them. They adjusted at the elbow and shoulder so I could pick up friends that have fallen and occasionally make my bed. At the wrists they only bent out not in, to remind me to always give people a helping hand, giving is better than receiving she stressed and that dreams where part of my purist of happiness.
She told me to stick up for what’s right but never raise a hand to fight because peace was never brought by punching fists and broken wrists
She did the same for my legs, told me that anything worth having was going to take a lot of walk, and that I would get tired but to keep going, triumph over your troubles she use to say because giving up grounds your dreams
My boots they went up to my knees, tall, so that I could walk through the Atlantic, run over mountains, fly over quicksand, so no matter what mother nature threw at me I could keep walking. Look, she said, don’t forget on this journey you will see many people, but not everyone will have shoes like yours, do not judge them if they have sandals, go barefoot and even, god forbid wear crocks, because you will never know what it is like to walk a mile in their shoes.
When I was 13 she connected all the pieces with courage, weaving in and out of the metal holding everything together with string, she said that it was thin but strong; that courage didn’t need to be slaying dragons and fighting with fire, it could be as subtle as standing up for the things you believe to be true, always keep integrity with you she chimed, so hidden between the sheets of metal, courage and integrity race over my skin, holding tight to a flood of silver and an ocean of protection.
And the other day, she finished it she put a patch over my heart trying to repair past pain, it had the sun rising on one side and setting on the other. This she said is to remind you that no matter how much this hurts the sun will always rise and set, there will always be a new day, and bad days will be that much farther away, don’t forget to carry dreams, tuck them next to your hopes and above your patched up pulmonary, but leave some room, you never know when someone will want to fill it up. The heart she told me, will drive you to the heights castle or the lowest dungeon. Follow it like the sun, let it be the reason you live, the reason why you haven’t fallen off the face of the earth and what you get up every morning to see, because baby, take it from me, you’re gonna need it on this journey.
