What do you hope to do before you die?

Love

I hope to love

I hope to love so thoroughly 

So constantly 

So deeply

It feels like breathing 

I hope to love so continuously 

So contagiously

So vigorously 

It feels excruciating 

I hope to love so enthusiastically 

So intensely 

So incredibly 

It feels impossible 

I hope to love in a way that doesn’t feel fleeting

Or delicate

In a way that envelops me so wholly

I can’t imagine living without it

Live

I hope to live

I hope to live without regrets

In a way that I won't look back on morosely 

In a way that I won't wish for more time

Because i’ll have lived 

Really lived

I’ll have traveled

And eaten

And built relationships 

I’ll have lived in a way 

So that when I look into a mirror

I’ll see lines creased into my face

Lines from times where my cheeks

Burned from smiling

And my ribs ached from laughing 

Because to live

To really live 

Is to live with others

To live without regrets

To live is to love 

To live is to not live perfectly 

It is to make mistakes

And grow

And learn

It is to feel

To cry

And to laugh

To scream

And shout

And ruin yourself

Just to fix it again

To live is to not be afraid

It is to allow yourself to do the wrong thing

It is to apologize 

But not too much 

It is to realize you aren’t inordinate 

Or insignificant 

And to let things go

It is to share your opinion 

And listen to others’

To not be unyielding in yours 

But not to change to please

It is to get to a place

That no matter how much you 

Mismanaged 

You wouldn’t go back and fix it

It is to get to a place

That no matter how many times you misspoke

You wouldn’t go back and apologize 

It is to know you asked for forgiveness 

Not permission 

Or you didn’t ask at all

It is a joyous day 

amidst a burdened world.

We cluster around stand mixers like crows

to telephone wire, make holy messes

of flour & floor. There are countless stories

being told.

It is a joyous day. Outside the window, squirrels

play-fight by the bird feeder & scramble up the pole

just to prove they can. In Baltimore someone I know chants Megillah

and tears open the story of a whole people 

yet again, for its renewal. It is a joyous

       day and we go walking

in the bright afternoon, laden with freshly baked hamentaschen.

I run to mailbox after mailbox & deliver poppy-seeded joy.

*Megillah is a part of the Talmud (Jewish book of scholarly debates & discussions about Torah) that talks about the laws and traditions of Purim, a Jewish holiday celebrating Queen Esther's triumph over evil Haman. (That's why we eat hamentaschen, which are little triangular cookies filled with yummy stuff :P)

My friends are all getting old

Getting their permit

License

Their own car

Getting boyfriends, girlfriends

Getting jobs

My friends are all getting old

They don’t play anymore

Not with toys

Or their imagination

We no longer run through the woods

Battling invisible monsters

Under the disguise of some character

With magic powers

My friends are all getting old

Caring about makeup

And reputation

Caring about social media

And what they post there

Posting there

every day

My friends are all getting old

I repeat as if I’m not, too

Time didn’t stop for me

I am aging too

So why do I feel like

My friends are all getting old

And I’m still just here

Age 6

Age 8

Age 11 or 12

Not 14

Wait

15

I just can’t get used to it

Because my friends are all getting old

Aspen picks me up in a jeep and drives us to school

Ada shows up to pick something up from our house

With some boy her age she introduces as her boyfriend

Jerimiah, the younger neighbor boy, even

The kid through the woods

Talks about how excited he is to get his driver’s permit

And I look at the people I have known all my life

And I think 

What happened to running through creeks

To playing with dolls and killing the whole family

Because neither of us could play normally

What happened to 2nd grade creative writing

Inventing creatures only a child could dream up

What happened to reading books

Calling them chapter books 

even though now, every book is a chapter book

And it was always a happy ending

Playing on the playground

Goodness, I miss the swings

The slides

Scraping my knees on that black rubber mulch

All my friends are getting old

I saw Emelyn at publix the other day

While I was shopping with my mom

She was wearing a green polo

A black apron

And a name tag that said “Happy to help!”

“Serving you since 2025”

All my friends are getting old

Just a few years ago, I remember summer

 Our parents sitting on the porch

Drinking coffee, beer

And us 

Playing mermaids In my pool

Us, seeing who could make the biggest splash

Us, begging my mother to come swim with us

To watch us dive into the cold water

And all my friends are getting old

Eventually, in some years, they'll be getting engaged

Getting married

Going to bars and clubs

Eventually,

These people I have known since pigtails,

Will be having little babies

That will remind me too much of them

That will remind me too much of then

And not enough of now

Because all my friends are getting old

And I still feel like a kid

Time wasted away

On small,

Trivial things

I only have one life

And no way

To undo the things

I’ve already done

So why

Do I waste hours

When I could be doing so much more?

Why 

Do I care so much

When it’s just a useless moment in my life?

Why should I put so much effort

Into something I can’t control?

Why am I wasting the only life I have?

Because it’s something I love doing,

Something that puts joy in me,

That lights up my face,

Because I know,

That 

It’s

Worth my time

My effort

My care

My attention

My energy

Because I will care,

No matter what others think.

How I wish I was a fairytale;

How I wish I wore gowns perfect

for twirling, and

how I wish I wore perfectly crisp

button-down shirts and

immaculately embroidered jerkins;

How I wish my eyeshadow really was

the stars brushed across my eyelids, and

how I wish I had rosy cheeks and a smile

sparkling as the sun;

How I wish I knew how to dance, and

had a prince charming to twirl me;

But perhaps I

do have a prince charming(kind

of, and I have friends with

flying hair and arms outstretched

to spin me), and

perhaps my eyeshadow is the stars, and

perhaps I do live a fairy tale;

So thank you (you

know who you are) for

writing me into your own stories.

My face is a mix of my parents'

I have my dad's eyes

And hair

I have my moms features

And skin tone

But it all pulled together

To make my face

My face with brown hair and eyes

Pink lips

And light olive skin

My mind was made by my mom and dad

I'm stubborn like my dad

And anxious like my mom

I'm also as determined as my dad

And as thoughtful as my mom 

I have opinions and ideas

Fears and concerns

My mind is bits and pieces

From my mom and dad

A mixture of both

My mom and dad like different things

I like both

I like the thrill of snowboarding

And sitting on the chairlift with my dad

I like getting lost in books

And holding hot cocoa in my hands as my mom holds her coffee

But I also like

To share my thoughts

And write about what I like

I like to listen to music

And hanging out with friends

I'm a mix of my mom and dad

I have a bit of their features

That tied together to make

The face that I see in the mirror each morning

My mind is like both of there's

With my stubborn and anxious tendencies

That created the business

In my brain

I like the same things as them

I like the thrill and stillness

Maybe the fact that I like those things

Contribute for my love of other things

I'm a mixture

Created with bits and pieces

Of my mom and dad

But in the end

I'm just me

If your eyes were the ocean, I'd swim in them.

If they were the sky, I'd fly in them.

Collecting crystals as blue as your eyes,

I wonder what I could see inside?

Blue flowers scream your name with a soft whisper,

and I listen carefully to each one, thinking of you.

Your blue eyes have made blue one of my favorite colors.

Every time you're on stage, I see your blue eyes glow, your pretty face glimmering in the warm, blinding light.

You like acting and singing, but you prefer bugs over people, like blue butterflies.

I wonder if you saw the way I stare into your eyes like an aquamarine gemstone, but I wouldn't know.

If we were at prom wearing matching blue dresses, I'd dance with you.

If you decided to wear a blue suit, I would still dance with you and I know you would do the same for me.

You're as pretty as a blue-tinted moon jellyfish, and the way the light hits your eyes makes me think of sunlight shimmering off of the water.

If only you knew the doubt I carried whenever I'm with you, thinking, “oh, they deserve so much better,"

Somebody once told me that blue meant sadness or despair, but whenever I look into your eyes; all I see is how pretty you are.

I wouldn't hesitate.

If your eyes were baggy ripped jeans, I'd wear em’.

The blue reef against the sand, I'd sit there with you until the tide pulled in.

If anything was as blue as your eyes, I know what I'd do.

All I know is that I love the color blue.

Imagine being in a place 
that everyone promised was safe, 
yet being chased 
by a weapon 
at the age of only eleven. 

School shootings are too normalized. 
Kids grow up scared and traumatized. 
Grief gets debated, politicized. 
It’ll be on headlines for a day or two, 
and the next day there’s new news, 
like, “Someone decided to shoot, but hey, Adidas made new shoes.” 
A resting place being a school —
the way they treat this situation is so cruel.

No one should have fear of that kind,
being held at gunpoint at the age of five.
All you can hear are screams and cries,
kids texting their parents, “Mom, ILY. Bye.”

And it’s not a one-day thing as well.
You can feel the silence where laughter fell.
Fear sits in every hallway cell.
The silence screams louder than the bell.

From one occurrence, kids are traumatized,
life flashing before their eyes,
questioning if they’ll make it out alive.
No one should have to beg, “Put down the gun,”
their life ending before it’s even really begun.

And I won’t say, “What if it was you,”
because it shouldn’t even be imagined. This isn’t a pain we should have to get used to.
This isn’t normal — it’s true.
Schools are meant to build futures, not undo them.

Because a seven-year-old girl had dreams to be
a princess, grow up, and see
the world. She still believed in the tooth fairy,
but now she rests for eternity.

And “If only they got out faster,” we say.
“We should’ve done drills for more days.”
If only the system protected who it promised to.
Time doesn’t owe her a future — we do.

Dedicated to the many schools on many lands,
and every adult who chose silence over command.
How many children must die before you stand?