(Part II of Numbers.)
I think it’s possible we’re all just made up of words. But
if we must never be someone else’s.
I am my heartbeat.
I am my Favorites Playlist on iTunes. I am made of the books
I spent dark hours soaking in as a child. I am every line I can quote from my
favorite movie. I am a worn, white Bible with my name in capital letters
markered on the side.
I am every mark on my pointe shoes. I am a million broken hair
ties. I am a collection of technique flaws strung together beneath a chin
lifted high with the inherent pride of ballet.
I am the morning fog on a gray beach. I am a little girl
with the scent of coffee and her grandfather staining her red hair. I am the
scent of baked apples and old sweaters. I am my mother’s heart.
I am butterfly kisses with the sound of laughter and the
thick patter of rain on the window. I am the sound of a baby boy in Africa learning
how to say ‘Kailey’. I am the
constellations on my freckled shoulders.
I am a complete fool – a child in a bigger body. I am the
heart that bleeds into the stunning silence of midnight. I am the things I
whisper to God beneath the covers. I am all the hellos that never happened.
I am my every flawed painting. I am the smell of Kentucky in
the autumn when the kitchen is busy and the apple trees are heavy with their
sweet, red knots.
You will find me in the jacaranda flowers that fall on the
sandy streets that network Namibia. Hear me in the echo of a lonely house with
toys, but no children. I am the noise my friends and I used to make when we
hooped and hollered in the abandoned streets of an African town late at night.
I find who I am in the swift breeze of a creaking swing. I
am my old, beat up bike without the training wheels. I am knees scars and
calloused feet. I am the pile of
photographs scattered on the glass table next to the sofa. I might be a door shut,
but I’m not often locked.
Maybe I’m the people I find it’s hardest to forgive. Or the
things I can’t say out loud. Or maybe the names of my parents and their
parents.
I am the cuts healed. I am the steam that clears fatigue
over a hot mug of tea. Part of me was
left in that first kiss. I am a little girl with a tendency toward both drama
and a little self-pity.
I am that idiot with an overwhelming amount of work left who
still stays up late just to laugh or just to write.
I am the almost-woman
writing herself into a book.
I am complete in Christ Jesus. I am full, even when I am
weak.
