So Much More

When I was just a baby,
my mother would hold me in her arms and watch the strangers on the street stare as they passed by.
She would look them in the eye and say,
“Don’t you tell her she is beautiful,
for she is so much more.
Tell her she is smart, and kind,
and can be whatever she wants to be.”
I grew up envying the rain and soaring through fields of poppy flowers like nothing
could ever change.
Even when things were wrong, they were right.
I grew up believing that I could catch the moon if I leaped high enough.
I would look up to the night sky and hold it in my fingers praying that I would never drop it because I couldn’t imagine the children of the world without a nightlight.
Laughter echoed through my house like God was laughing right along with us.
“You’re a good girl”, they would say.
“You’re so special.”
When I was in the 3rd grade,
I bet a boy that I would become the president of the United States.
We spit into our hands and grasped them together like a bond we could never break.
I have always been a believer,
a little too gullible,
a little too outspoken.
My name, means pure warrior.
I was born a fighter,
and to this day I can still hear my mother’s voice in my ears assuring me that I will always be okay
Reminding me to fight for the underdog,
to show the world what is wrong, and what is right.
Even when life knocked me down with a wrecking ball,
I got back up.
With a tremble in my voice, and my heart like a freight train flying down the tacks,
I spoke the truth because I knew it could kill me if I didn’t.
I am happy like trees in the spring welcoming their buds back home again because I know what it is like to be so sad, all you can manage to do is go through the motions with a pretty smile on your face.
I am kind because I know what it is like to be hurt, to have an ache in the pit of your stomach so large that you swear everyone around you can feel it too, and no matter what you do it remains.
I will always see the beauty in life because of the times I didn’t.
I vowed to never see the world in black and white when there is so much grey in between.
I am soft because I begged that I would never become hard like the men I see on the streets.
Even when I feel alone and empty, like the field I ran through as a child,
I know I am never alone.
I know that I am loved with such passion, that like paint on a canvas it can never fade.
I will always reach for your hand even if I know it’s the last thing you want because I know it is what you need. Because I know we all need a hand to hold sometimes.
I will never leave you unless you tell me to go.
I will always write as though I have a story worth telling and I will always make the same mistakes twice.
By now I should know that if I reach for the flame, I will get burned.
Still, I reach out expecting something new.
To me, fire has always been a little piece of the sun; bright and exciting, a promise of a new day, a little piece of home.
I will never forget, but I will always forgive, setting my demons free on a cold night because I know they will freeze. 
At night, I count my blessings 1, 2, 3…..and drift to sleep.
My dreams are like giants in the sky, so large they frighten you but bring a sense of wonder you hadn’t yet known was there.
To this day, I am still grasping the moon in my hand, so when you see me, don’t call me beautiful, for I am so much more.