On the Age of Princesses and Pirate Ships

It was like listening to herself babble away in the backseat,

About nothing, and everything.

“Mommy made me wear these to, what is that thing called when

Someone dies? Yeah, a funeral, that’s it.”

I must have said something to that effect ten years ago.

It was like watching herself discover pop music for the first time,

As they listened to Taylor Swift.

“On a bandview in somedale.” “On a balcony in summer air.”

I like this song. God her songs are sad.

“Do you like this song just because it mentions the seven dwarves?”

I didn’t even notice it mentioned the seven dwarves “Yes.”

It was like reliving the innocent days,

As they talked over a cappuccino and a hot chocolate,

About how boys are gross,

Video games and kissing and all that, gross. Yeah…you. just. wait.

She gets home and half expects to see her
eight year old self in the mirror

because she’s been living in a pre-adolescent memory all afternoon.

She thinks back to the movie theater, the blue-raspberry slushie,

To the kids section of the book store,

To the song playing on the radio.

There’s a reason the song goes,

Don’t forget to look before you fall.

Not before you leap, but before you fall.

We’re all bound to. We all jump,

and we all fall. Blame it on gravity,

blame it on fate, or blame it on nothing

and embrace the impact as best you can.
Love the fall, because sometimes it will be all you've got.

Along with some nostalgia and a new-found appreciation

For the wooden toys her mother gave her (her fingers went numb

Trying to fit those silly plastic dolls in their silly rubber clothes.),

That was the take away.

Look before you fall.

She’s practically a grown-up now,

with responsibilities, with worries, with honest desires, with attainable dreams.

She knows that the Elf on the Shelf isn’t magical,

But my God, how she wishes it was.

She knows that childhood lenses shatter somewhere around adolescence,

            And she wishes she could save the young,

            Or at least prepare them for what lies ahead.

She can’t remember the day, month, or even exact year,

            When she made a devastating realization.

The world wasn’t on her side.

            No one could save her from what she’d do to herself.

Her childhood had evaporated.

            Christmas brought sadness, not presents,

            And it’d be that way for a while.

She’s in the middle of childhood naïveté

            And the vast bitterness of adulthood. 

            Neither quite here nor there.

She swears she won’t let the world get to her,

            But fears she’s beaten the world at that race.

But maybe it’s not so bad to see things for what they are--

            To recognize sadness and humor, grief and irony

            To feel disappointment is to appreciate love

            and all the rest of it just a bit more.

Besides, in one way or another, she’s still got parts of that sparkling youth.

She thinks she can do anything.

She thinks the world’s her canvas,

Because up until this point, it has been.

She’s tried and failed and healed and tried again,

And nothing’s ever stopped her.

She prays that it will always be this way,

That she can act with no regrets, forever.

That she can hit the target every shot she takes, forever.

She prays, but she still knows better.

She dreams the same way Children do.

The only difference is that she recognizes

The foolish parts.

She writes them off.

I’ll bounce back.

Or else deal with it when I’m really an adult.

But Children aren’t sophisticated enough to know

that someday the world won't be at their fingertips.

Someday they'll be hit hard, and it'll feel like

a ton of bricks, the weight of the world.

Someday they'll see more clearly, 

and someday they'll be scared of more than

just monsters under the bed.

They can't grasp the concept of growth and change,

And thank God for that.  

 And at her age,

all you have to do is reach out

and touch the world. 

At her age, it's all possible. 

It's all right there.

Photo Credit

Every Time A Bell Rings...

...an angel gets his wings. 

Inspiration from It's a Wonderful Life.

Baby, it's cold outside. I don't feel like moving from this deep sleep. 
Baby, it's cold outside. I need you close to me. 


She lights a candle and puts on that slow record,
the one that lulls her into sweet dreams. The moment pulls along,
like the long drag of a cigarette; like honey dripping off a spoon. 
She cracks the window and sits on the sill; she tucks her legs up to her chest. 
It's snowing outside. The moon's casting shadows across her bedroom floor.
That lonely bedroom. That lonely moon. 
Lasso it. She wishes she could lasso the moon. 
She wishes she could find someone willing
to make dreams like that come true--
wishes she could find someone worth wishing for. 
The snow sparkles on her sill like shattered panes of glass.
If only she could pull the moon down from its high palace. Then she'd have someone
to spend the night with--someone to whisper her dreams to
in the dark, black night. 

Where do those dreams go, into the darkness?

Into the night sky?

Out into the storm, to get mixed in with the snowflakes

and built into an igloo in some child's front lawn? 

I hope so. I hope they make their way in a world as

cold as this one. I hope they make it long enough

to see the ground thaw and the spring bloom. 

I hope they make it.

She wants moonbeams to shoot out of her skin. 

She wants to dance until the sun rises and makes the hillside pink. 

She wants to live in a perpetual dream, in which the record never

stops spinning and her feet never tire and her dance partner never tires.

She wants to look at her flower and watch it multiply into a garden. She wants to be 

foolish enough to believe, fully, that the real world can mesh with her dreams.

She wants beauty. She wants to be made of moonbeams.

Dream a little dream for me, 

for  all's fair in love,

isn't that what they say?

That's why she lights up

like a firefly,

that'd look so pretty in a jar on a bedstand or

on a printed postcard--

That's why she shys away

like a secret--
when you're around.

For, all's fair in love.

Her taken heart jumps just thinking

of walking with you.

All's fair in love. All's fair in love. All's fair in love

and war. Well, I don't know about war.

Baby, it's cold outside. Won't you climb in next to me?
Won't you catch that moon, ring that bell, sing that tune?
And take these fallen petals and tuck them away, for
they'll be worth something, someday. 
Let me have your vacant ear, 
let me whisper my childish dream,
though I know you'll never hear,
Baby, it's cold out, hold me close, hold me near.