Dear Moonchild

Dear moonchild,

I wonder if at first I was intimidated by you,

Or if I knew your fate before you did,

Maybe that’s why I tried to contain you.

You’re beautiful

In ways only you could be

With your dark skin

And raggedy pastel blue dreads

Your floral overalls and country boots

Your fist held high

And voice raised loud

As if activism was your first language.

Probably because it was.

You’re playlists with everything from

Little Big Horn to Kendrick Lamar to Tyler, the creator

You did it all

With no regard for what you

“should have been”

Beautifully unbothered and unconcerned

with the stereotypes

Or how people reacted to you

You lived

Exactly how you wanted.

I had never met anything like you before

We were 12.

Before I realized beauty was something

You could both hold at night

and daydream about on a lazy Tuesday afternoon,

I thought I had to keep you

Plastic wrap seal all that you were up into a frame,

Hang you on my wall, keep you.

I wanted to preserve all of you

I had no idea how

You were an anomaly,

my very own Cotton Candy Colored Moonchild.

I was convinced you dropped directly out of the stars and into my middle school

Specifically for me.

But I very quickly learned beauty can only thrive

In environments

Where it is free to grow.

A flower can only become a meadow if its given the proper care.

It still amazes me how quickly darkness can fill a room

Society crept in at about 14.

High school hit

And we quickly learned that kids can be cruel

Knock you into the lockers

“watch it freakface!” cruel

The kind that seeps into your bones until it drips from your pores like tree sap.

I watched heaviness settle into your soul

The light leave your eyes

And the joy leave your spirit.

I watched you lose yourself into what we were

“supposed” to be.

You stopped singing as loudly

Started buying brands you didn’t care about

And packed your boots away.

“its better this way,” you said,

“they stared at me before.”

I couldn't find the words to tell you

They stared because you were everything we all wanted to be.

They called you freak because you had the courage to be exactly who you were

They pushed you around because you didn’t fit into any category they gave you

You defied all odds,

You were an anomaly,

An enigma, unapologetically happy

Something we had never seen before.

A Beautiful Cotton Candy Colored Moonchild.

Everything we couldn’t find the courage to be.

The day you shaved your dreads in my sink

I cried.

Those beautiful moonlight colored tendrils

Dropped like bombs on my bathroom floor

Our own personal battlefield.

“its for the best” you whispered

I cried harder.

Some days I wonder if I’ll ever see you again

Not specifically you,

But children like you

Little water colored monsters running around

Hearts filled to the brim with courage

I wonder how long we will continue to let high school destroy

our children, how many beautiful souls will die before we get there

I often wonder if I will ever be able to tell you

I’m sorry

I wish I would have had the strength, the words, to tell you

You’re beautiful.

I wonder often if you ever replanted yourself

I can only imagine just how beautiful your meadow is

Forever Yours,

An Aspiring Moonchild