Here’s to the kids lying on the floor.
Here’s to the kids whose hearts that drip and spin and ooze and pour.
Here’s to the kids with hands spread wide with open doors to their cars and shudder with lies.
Here’s to the kids with cat scratches, metal latches, kitchen sinks, emotional tumors.
Here’s to the kids with paper masks, who smile when they scream and snap when they cry.
Here’s to the kids who want to say “I’m sorry” but have forgotten the lines,
Here’s to the kids that touch bone, say they’re fine, and have lost their shoulder blade wings to the sky.
Here’s to the kids without laughter lines,
Here’s to the kids with smile scars.
Here’s to the kids that press on, live on, watch the trees and sing bravely on.
Here’s to the kids with eyes made of steel, the kids that fight to feel.
Here’s to the kids that leave prints in the snow and who fight for their right to say no.
This is how we fight for our lives, this is how we breathe.
Leave your lost name at the door and bring us your thoughts
Your insides, your reality, your strengths and
Your weaknesses and your smile and your tears and your hands.
Take off your mask, kid, take it off and release the butterflies with fangs that live inside your hushed brain.