You are already remarkable.

There are rooms full of poets

who already love you,

we already love you.

I hope that you read To Kill A Mockingbird

and savor every syllable of the name you’re given

and think of it as poetry

but don’t ever feel it is something you cannot live up to.

I hope you will feel invincible and infinite

I hope you never wish your body away; invisible.

Wish to be heard, demand to be heard

I hope that you will be an artist in a media world,

that your feet brush the ocean at night

that you compose a symphony.

I hope that you are the type of boy unashamed to cry.

I hope that you collect notebooks and stacks of CD’s and you still send letters.

I hope that you love used book stores and record stores…

I hope that they still have those.

I hope that you love raindrops and dew drops and snowflakes and sunlight,

I hope that you love the way the air smells right before it rains.

I hope that you see sunlight filtering through stained glass

and notice that deep shade of violet that cloaks the world at twilight.

I hope that you are not afraid to love because it is such a difficult thing to do.

I hope that you think scars make things that much more beautiful.

I hope that you have more than one place you can call home.

I hope that you hear 93 and Evergreen

and that your idols are the Suffragists and the Abolitionists.

I hope that you like to play pretend that you are Sherlock Holmes.

I hope you carve your initials into a tree,

write your name in the sand, on a park bench,

scrawl it into fresh sidewalks

until it can be found in history books.

I hope they still have tangible things because that helps to make it feel more real.

I hope you don’t scroll through pictures and memories

wishing that they still had books and letters and records

like I wish they still had quill pens and secret societies,

like I wish that you could walk through the forest without obligation to feel terrified

and you didn’t have to wonder if a river was manmade.

I hope that you don’t have to wish they still had poetry readings

or wonder why the air is thin without flowers and trees.

I hope that you are everything the world cannot be

I hope that you remember that we love you,

we already love you.