You grow weary, of the weight of time and the burden of expectation and the low, restless ache of knowing — that you should be so much more than you are. That they know you have fallen short, and try to love you despite your failures. That there is disappointment in their eyes, behind the kind laughter and the reassurances that you belong, you matter, you are
enough
that even though there is not the ghost of a chance you are one in a billion, one in a million, barely enough to be one in one
you’re here, your presence is noted and accounted for as days pass and pass and this sad world of great and hidden wonders spins on in irregular bursts of small tragedy and sudden beauty and strong hearts weakening with each gentle beat, counting down in quiet cadences, the notes growing softer as the distance between them grows
and you are haunted: by days you won’t see, when spring still feels a promise of tiny buds on quivering limbtip beneath a leaden sky and steady downpour and they will find themselves, effortlessly, drifting between the drops, wondering back to the days when they were small and sweet and treasured above all things. What fragments of half-forgotten melody will your children carry on their lips as they whisper to the rain? What echoes of your own broken cadences will linger, and resonate, and find purchase in these undiscovered countries, in voices and strange rhythms you will never hear but would recognize in less than the time between eyeblink and heartbeat, even across the gulf of
years from this moment, with lips bitten and brows furrowed and steady pencil gripped in thin and nimble fingers as they carefully navigate the barricades of cluttered numbers and tumbling letters that stand between the work of home and the freedom of all the glorious hours to come — when everything and anything is possible and limitless worlds are within their reach and the joy of play is total and absolute and bigger than the biggest mountain, broader than the sky, deeper than the darkest chasm in the deepest of all blue seas, faster than
sound and light and laughter
bounded only by the limits of daylight and imagination, by wooden fences and busy streets and the single commandment they were ever taught as truth: Be Safe, my loves
your words will not be enough. But they are all you have to offer, so you cling to the ghost of a hope that somewhere in the midst of your failings and falling short, your false gods and your growing fear of fading to gray, to mist, to dust and memory of all that might have been but never quite was, these lonesome prayers will linger and last, catch hold and - in time - allow them to burst free
of fresh earth, radiant with promise, buds unfolding to bloom in the warm light of a new sun.
