When I was a kid, I hid my heart under the bed because my mother said " if your not careful someday someone is gonna break it, take it from me under the bed is not a good hiding spot, I know because I've been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself." When I was a kid, I could fill a bookshelf with every different way they would tell me how not to play, they'd say " it's time to start putting the childish things away" , and I was like " Fuck you! , this is Skeletor", but more and more they made me believe that our hearts are like door knocks, and thats where we get the sound of the beat, and I'll never get to met the woman inside me if I can't stay still long enough to be there, I'll never make it anywhere if I keep running away, I'll never know myself if all I ever do is play Niki-Niki-Nine or as I don't want to be a woman. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a " woman", I wanted to register a retirement savings plan that would keep me and Ruby long enough to make old age sweet, I want two left feet so I could dance circles around important issues until way past my bedtime, I'm not saying I don't have opinions, just that others will less likely argue if they were as tired as I was, fatigued as to amen what a goodnight kiss does to kids, it puts weights on our eyelids and returns us to a place where reason and imagination lace together shoes whose tung stuck out at stillness and beckoned us to move forward. As a kid I was always drawn toward moonlight, despite the armada of adults who insisted I must set my days according to sunlight, I would lay in bed and fight sleep believing if I shut my eyes even for an instant I would miss out on something amazing, turns out I was right I have seen stars stamped into the night like cookie cutter designs, I drew lines in between each one inventing new constellations so that when someone would ask me "what's your sign?" I could point to mine, the one hanging over the first door past the finish line, I'd say " It's right there, the one marked exit" because one day all this " getting ahead bullshit" will be over and people will start looking for me, and I'll be there. I'll wear my best flashing red and you, you will stand winner circle thorough bred, I will unthread the screws that would put you throughout this life, then smile and say " you made it ". When I was a kid, I traded in homework assignments for friendship, and I gave each friend a late slip for never showing up on time, and in most cases not at all. I gave myself a hall pass to get through each broken promise... and I remember this plan born outta frustration from a kid who kept calling me Yogie, then pointed to my tummy and said " to many picnic baskets". Turns out that its not to hard to trick someone, and one day before class I said "yeah, you can copy my homework" and I gave him all the wrong answers that I've written down the night before. He got his paper back expecting a near perfect score, and he couldn't believe it when he looked across the room at me and held up a zero. I know I didn't have to hold up my paper of 28/30 but my satisfaction was complete when he looked puzzled and I thought to myself " smarter than the average bear motherfucker". When I was a kid I slid love letters through the slots of lockers that belonged to my secret crushes, I built paint brushes from the tiny hairs that stood on end every time I saw them. My brain stem finally bloomed with thought, I connected dots, and made masterpieces. Each brush took a theses dedicated to the explanation that you...not knowing who I was was only because anonymity made it easier to be brave, I dipped my brush into a tidal wave of " I hope this will one day wash over me", I can guarantee if you've ever had a secret admirer it was someone very much like me who loved someone very much like you, it was someone who wanted to tell you how much you meant, how every second they spent thinking of you was simply the cost of getting us through the hard times, we saved nickels and dimes hoping out first date would be with you. So the disappoint of love we gave up comic books and video games, and I promise you that every guy I've ever met remembers the names of the ones they loved first, that our thirst for love continues as we cross the deserts of maybe, believing we will find an oasis of yes! Acquiesce... yes, we probably should have said something, but we were chicken shit... we lit the fusses in our hearts and exploted everytime you walked on by. When I was a kid I did stuppid shit, I ripped the mans underwear section out of the Sears Christmas wish catalog and blamed it on my grandma, she did end up covering for me, and had only this to say "YOUR ONLY 12! So I'm impressed, but take it from experience don't hide that under your mattress", so I didn't, I hid it in an empty box of a board game that I never used to play, and on the day when my grandfather eventually found it, he reamed her out for hiding pornography in his granddaughters bedroom, the impending doom of the truth set upon me like a die in the sun sending it's last ray of light over the horizon and aimed directly at me. She didn't say a word, incurred the full wrath then laughed with me later saying " it's like your heart, it doesn't matter where you hide it, lovers are like little kids lifting up a rock looking for an insect, they will find that shit." When I was a kid, I trusted myself enough to know that one day I'd be a woman, one day I would have a childhood for a past and a future for a back up plan, that every gauntlet I ever ran was a potato sack race in which time would chase me further toward an ending, I am bending myself back to the beginning, reminding myself "there is no winning any race against yourself, slow down" and when the kid in you falls, turn around pick them up and dust them off, then continue trust me you are going to need that kid. You are gonna need someone to remind you that every weed is a flower. Just trying to make shit work, and every jerk you ever encounter, it's just another someone who somehow forgot it's ok to need a hug, it's ok to be afraid. When I was a kid, I played hopscotch with the lines that draws us and landed on the conclusion that second hand clothes was at least the benefit of experience, and I've got 137th hand heart broken apart and stitched back together at the seems, I've cartwheeled across balance beams made from the broken finger bones of people who could not let go of this life. I still love the night, I love the fact that if you squint your eyes just right stars look like porcupines of light stumbling across the dark dipping their quills into the night trying to right apologies for all the unanswered wishes from the times we once wished upon them, sometimes I still wish, I wish i didn't have too, I wish I didn't have to wish. So I guess what I'm saying is that I hope, I hope that I never forget that kid that grew up inside me. He just seemed to laugh a little bit louder, smiled just a little bit longer, loved a whole lot stronger, first official awesome longer, taking awesome from door to door, don't worry about me I've got more, I've got a candy store filled with what ever is going to take to make tomorrow sweet." I've got two left feet and no bed time, I'm still not brave enough to have an orgy, but I rock the slumber party come nap with me", first one to fall asleep loses, first one to fall asleep wins. "The race stops at the start and the finish line is where it begins", so this time first one to lose wins. I know we never meant to turn our hearts into garbage bins, it was an accident. I know the headlines about us giving up were a missprint, and really just bad reporting. I know we've been boarding up all the windows from the outside, in, we've been doing it ever since they told us to start letting things go, and I know we got into the habit of throwing everything away, but your heart is a door knock, and every time it beats, its just that kids way of asking.... "Can you please come out and play?".
Fin
