Love Letter

A work in progress...


To the strangers who smile back
To the enemies I haven’t met
To the honest politicians
and the humbly devout
To everyone who earns more than money
To the millionaires who go without:

This is my love letter to the world.

Dear everyone,

I hope you know I love you.

I’ve been meaning to write you for a while, but when you write a love letter, what do you say?
Here, I bought you some candy for Valentine’s Day?

Fortunately, what I'm tasting is now
sappy sweet Hallmark fabrication of an explanation, no -
It's the spiced fire of my sincere soul simmering restlessly
between my heart and my mouth,
between my mind and my hands,
between what is and what could be.

This love that I feel is a muscle memory
Remembered in my feet
Movement that flings me
forward, forward, forward, and
it’s the air that keeps me breathing,
it’s the breathing that keeps me living
each moment loving you

You who were all small once.
Back then you would wake up the dawn and tuck in the night
back then before anyone told you that you couldn’t do that,
back then when the big world was still small and small child was still big…
You grew up, but I’ve never stopped loving you.

I want to see your beautiful smile, but you know,
I still love you when you’re crying –
Sometimes I wonder who broke your heart,
and sometimes I wonder how to stitch it together,
and sometimes I realize that even healed wounds have scars.

It's true that you have given me a few,
but I hope that I could sew a few good stitches,
because I’ve never stopped loving you.

Now listen -
what I’m telling you is no princess story because I’m no princess,
and it’s no fairy tale because it might not end in happily ever after,

This love - this life - my love letter to the world:
I’m still writing it.