Motivational posters

That litter doctor’s offices

And grade school classrooms

And Hallmark cards

And my Tumblr dashboard

That would proclaim that life is awesome

Didn’t really mean anything to me

Until I stopped believing it.

 

Shadows can take up the sidewalk

Even when the sun takes weeks off

And clouds hover

Like they’re saturated pictures of sunsets

And kittens

That can’t hold on much longer.

And as the asphalt I treaded grew rugged and pained,

Needing to be paved,

So did I.

 

I was told that you need to find the smallest things to be beautiful

Before you can say the same about the rest of your life,

Replace the loose plank on the bridge before burning it down

And dissect the corpse and take what you can to save another

Before you bury either one.

 

Remember what got me here.

Remember what saved me.

The smallest things.

The awesome things.

 

The marshmallows in Lucky Charms

And free samples at grocery stores

And cats that curl up in little balls next to you to make the situation go from depressing

To manageable.

 

The barista who makes your drink with extra whipped cream and gets your name right on the first try,

And the teacher that forgets about homework,

And the friend who tells you, “Hey. It’s okay.”

What’s okay?

“Everything.”

 

Pictures of California,

Anime triggering tears,

Driving down the highway railing on every top forty song.

 

Remember. The smallest things.

A wound needs to be cleaned with a drop of alcohol before covered with a bandage.

It’s the only way it truly heals.

I try to fill each day with a drop of something

Awesome.

A paycheck,

A hedgehog,

A lizard skittering away within four seconds of the riveting encounter,

A nickel on the ground.

 

Everything used to be worth a nickel,

And so it should feel like an “everything” in my hands.

 

I make my own ball of sunshine,

The shadow that reflects against the everything.

 

A shelf dedicated to the people who make the world

Awesome.

From that one friend who weaved a grass bracelet while waiting to pick me up from school,

To the other who made this cool origami thing as a token for being their when everything else about Economics sucked.

The stuffed penguins that spawned from inside jokes,

And birthday cards from people that didn’t forget

And could never be worth forgetting about.

 

Picking daisies,

Reading books,

Blowing out candles

And wishing for everything.

 

Everything.

 

The sun takes years off, but after treading in deep water,

There are places to stick your toes in

And find the serenity to immerse into the infinite when you can’t.

 

The smallest shall add into everything, when given the chance.

 

When I see those posters,

Littering every part of my life,

I still find it hard to embody the rest of it,

But I then want to go explore again,

Getting a little ink

To write my own.