You are small.

You live within a tangle of faces and names. People drift in eddies around you, eyes overflowing with their own futures. It’s funny, no matter how many stars there are in the sky, all people can see is their own futures. There are billions of futures blooming and withering around the spot where you stand.

But you must not be afraid.

You are a structure of bone living on a speck in outer space. The planets sing ring-around-the-rosie as they circle the sun. The sun is lost in a splatter-painting of a million other stars. The stars are threads shimmering in a velvet black blanket in a pile of blankets on the tippy top shelf of a closet full of blankets.

But you must not be afraid.

Your life is a second. Time unfolds before you into infinity. It reaches behind you, arms full of stories, most of which will never be heard. The clock keeps ticking even as your heart stops beating. It’s a dot trying to catch up with a line; in a race against time, you can never win.

But you must not be afraid.

Because
maybe we are fallen leaves in an uncontrollable and unpredictable gust of wind, but one night you will spin, and your dress will billow out around  you, sending whispers of air in every direction. For a moment, you will own the wind.

And maybe every line ever started will one day come to an end, but one afternoon you will trace the lines of a hand which fits into yours as if it was made to hold you. For a second, you will own every line.

And maybe someday no one will remember the color of your eyes, but one morning you will see a soft shade of blue riding in on breakfast tides as the sun fills the clouds with the pink of your sunburnt cheeks. For an instant, you will own all colors.

And maybe every word you have ever said has been said a million different times inside a million different stories, but one day you will start to write and the letters will seem to fall into place as effortlessly as raindrops. For a brief spell, you will own words.

You are small,
but you must not be afraid.