When you were young, maybe three or four,
you would scream and cry loud, real tears in the morning
if anyone got down the stairs to the garage before you.
No one knew why you had to be first. But it didn’t matter.
You have run head first, sometimes literally, into everything
ever since. Even when the gnawing beginnings of anxiety
eclipsed you just a few short years later. Even when the world
was too loud and too big and too agile. When the shaking did not
stop. When they left, again and again. Every time, you leaned in,
trembling and small: stood up to the bully, argued back, asked
just one more time are you sure you’re okay? You have loved quietly
and fiercely and with your whole racing heart. It is hard to be open in a world
that only sees that as access. As opportunity. To give of yourself every time
and to believe in the better. In our tangible growth towards it.
Anya, the bravest thing anyone can do in this life is love, still. So,
when the innate yawn of your hummingbird heart begins again,
when it thumps in thick rhythm love love love
when it happens, and it will happen, all you have to do is listen.