When you are 13 years old,

the heat will be turned up too high

and the stars will not be in your favor.

You will hide behind a bookcase

with your family and everything left behind.

You will pour an ocean into a diary.

When they find you, you will be nothing

but a spark above a burning bush,

still, tell them

Despite everything, I really believe people are good at heart.

When you are 14,

a voice will call you to greatness.

When the doubters call you crazy, do not listen.

They don’t know the sound

of their own God’s whisper. Use your armor,

use your sword, use your two good hands.

Do not let their doubting

drown out the sound of your own heartbeat.

You are the Maid of Untamed Patriotism.

Born to lead armies into victory and unite a nation

like a broken heart.

When you are 15, you will be punished

for learning too proudly. A man

will climb onto your school bus and insist

your sisters name you enemy.

When you do not hide,

he will point his gun at your temple

and fire three times. Three years later,

in an ocean of words, with no apologies,

you will stand before the leaders of the world

and tell them your country is burning.

When you are 16 years old,

you will invent science fiction.

The story of a man named Frankenstein

and his creation. Soon after you will learn

that little girls with big ideas are more terrifying

than monsters, but don’t worry.

You will be remembered long after

they have put down their torches.

When you are 17 years old,

you will strike out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig

one right after the other.

Men will be afraid of the lightening

in your fingertips. A few days later

you will be fired from the major leagues

because “Girls are too delicate to play baseball”

You will turn 18 with a baby on your back

leading Lewis and Clark

across North America.

You will turn 18

and become queen of the Nile.

You will turn 18

and bring justice to journalism.

You are now 18, standing on the precipice,

trembling before your own greatness.

This is your call to leap.

There will always being those

who say you are too young and delicate

to make anything happen for yourself.

They don’t see the part of you that smolders.

Don’t let their doubting drown out the sound

of your own heartbeat.

You are the first drop of a hurricane.

Your bravery builds beyond you. You are needed

by all the little girls still living in secret,

writing oceans made of monsters and

throwing like lightening.

You don’t need to grow up to find greatness.

You are stronger than the world has ever believed you to be.

The world laid out before you to set on fire.

All you have to do

is burn.