thank you
for bringing us mornings that taste like leftovers and sound
like last night's debate replaying on TV.
thank you
for giving us the song of the radio:
politics and pollution
promises and lies. 
thank you 
for 8 am voices echoing in the halls of school, snippets of life we forget to love 
until only silence fills their place.
thank you
for unanswerable questions and rain outside classroom windows.
thank you 
for building endless cities to get lost in on a Tuesday afternoon when the sun dangles
from the skyscrapers. 
thank you for the parade of tired buses crawling down Main Street at 3 pm
and the space between sidewalks and April skies. 
thank you for crowds of strangers
but more than that 
thank you
for the people who feel like happiness
and places that look like home. 
thank you 
for sunsets
engraved with promises that tomorrow is already on its way
coming suitcase in hand from another corner of the world. 
thank you 
for late night laughter under the frozen stars
for conversations to replay in our heads as we try to fall asleep,
for falling in love. 
thank you 
for the gentle hug of the twilight and
for nightlights when our own darkness threatens to drown us. 
thank you 
for 11 pm texts: goodnight, sleep well. see you tomorrow. 
thank you 
for sleep and for dreams that we can fly. 
thank you
for waking us up to do it all again. 

thank you for giving us so much to miss now that it’s gone.