First thing's first, I'm an idealist. 

I paint my nails in stardust and read my favorite books until their spines have ripped pages from each vertebrae; dress my walls with more promises than I've ever been taught to paint. I hold gulps of air in my cheeks for the sunrise. Chocolate cake, sunflowers...anything breathtaking. I like to be prepared. 

I wore a purse on the first day of teaching. Filled it with too many expectations. It was too heavy for my commute: When I put it on the ground by my feet on the C train, I heard them whisper calm down to one another, not knowing what the words meant but hoping it would halt the bouncing. 

​I packed my bags to the brim but light enough to keep flitting from daydream to daydream. Threw my hands out windows on the Pacific Coast Highway just to know what it would feel like to fly. Played Never Have I Ever  in an Irish hostel where every brick and bedframe was, too, once never. Etched reminders, like mantras, into outstretched arms hoping this pain would be the last--that each pain would be the last. 

I wrote promises into a paper ring, in a field of trees whose leaves danced to the key of falling. The air smelled of impending rain but Mother Nature waited until we had said our vows; a courtesy not shared by all mothers.  The disappointment these hands have held can be whittled down to nothing with a biting tongue and firm mallet but we are all still piecing together the parts of ourselves we are trying to protect; the rubble left after the hurricane. 

I am the daughter of honeycombs and dragons. Everyday we decide who we will be and how we will get there. Everyday. We decide. 

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