My throat hurts, trying to explain to you the wonder in us.Β
Havenβt you seen it? The bumblebees and their drunken bobbing, thereβs magic on your fingers when you gently lift them to a flower. The stars in the sky that look so far away, yet if you reach as high as you can and stand on your tiptoes, steadying yourself on the laughing friend next to you, you and the stars are one and the same.
Havenβt you listened to the strangers humming songs as they pass? Havenβt those songs played through your head until you know them? Thereβs a piece of someone elseβs wonder on your playlist, buried in the rest of the music that makes your heart beat differently.
Those distant laughs and snippets of conversation that make you jealous and proud all at once that those people have friends they can be themselves with. Those friends you can be yourself with.
Sitting on the carpet and petting a dog while the smell of your favorite food fills the air and you close your eyes because today is good.
The idea of running away to live in the woods, stealing away on a roadtrip to the coast, exploring a big city and falling in love with everyone you meet.
Poetry you hear when you go on a hike andΒ the itchy mosquito bites that you try not to focus on in the late nights while the fire crackles and the wind whistles through the trees. Sand kicking up into your eyes as you run across the desert, falling over sand dunes and tripping on air. Your reflection, warped and funny looking in a stream before you splash through it, stuffing bright rocks into your pockets and weaving fallen leaves into your hair.
Havenβt you ever heard a baby laugh or a cat purr? Havenβt you ever ran your hands along the fabrics at a clothes store, heading straight for the sales section?
I remember the first time I forgot how to breathe in a thunderstorm. The thunder was so loud it hurt my chest, and my mom squeezed my hand and the rain apologized with itβs gentle droplets, falling over my upturned face from my porch roof.
Now, every time the thunder clashes, my breath catches, and I smile.
Canβt you see how wonderful it is here?
Thereβs no greater meaning in life than to live.Β
The incredible existence that is you with the world is all there is and will be infinitely more the longer you let yourself see.
You touch the universes when you dance with your friends, you transform realities every time you laugh until you cry. You build the foundations of love whenever you smile, you create peace by being loud and reckless.Β
What part of the world holds no wonder? What part of you?
The molecules that wove our bodies on looms of stardust never thought of you as a mistake.
When you change your name or hair or any aspect of your appearance they are the first to accept it, even before you. How could they not? When youβre made of stars, when your bones evolved from small and fragile to strong and so uniquely you all on their own, how could you be anything but a masterpiece?
This is incoherent and a jumble because I just want you to know in every way that if you see that wonder around you, if you see that magic and that beauty and that unidentifiable grace, that you canβt deny itβs in you too.
You are the soft sunsets and the pastel skies. You are the stars at night and the meteor showers that people dedicate their entire lives to chasing. You are solar eclipses and impossible planets. You are green grass on a summerβs day and sprinklers under a tramp. You are McDonaldβs runs at two am and sticking your hand out the window as you drive.
You are the loud voice announcing horses and cows as you pass them, you are the excitement when a child sees a dog.
You are every relationship and every hope. You are the boats lost at sea with the flickering radars, you are the planes that find them. You are the deep ocean and the blue and gold waves at dawn, you are the sun and the moon revolving and never meeting, you are the cluttered rooms and the messy art supplies. You are the hummingbirds and the butterflies, you are the pollen they treasure, you are the flowers they bloom.
You are laughter and you are love and you are everything you need to be.
Pick a flower as you walk home, whistle back at a bird, bring a family member a cup of coffee, get lost in someoneβs eyes, stare at your reflection and try and be friends, take a breath.
Now how can you tell me youβre not wonder itself, when you are all these wonderful things?
