hello little one
my little boy blue
exhausted from trying
trying to fit-in
trying to be boyish
trying to be the peacekeeper

hello little one
my little boy blue
exposed to violence
exposed to instability
exposed to abuse

hello little one
my little boy blue
a survivor of adversity
a bouncer back
a fighter

hello little one
my little boy blue
you made
i made it
we made it

hello little one
my little boy blue
we found the strength
we found peace
we found the ability to forgive

hello little one
my little boy blue
rest
dream
the bogeyman is gone

Dear Ciara, 
I know it can be hard to understand why your life felt so different from the other kids around you. I just need you to know I am so proud of the way you handled yourself amid situations that no child should have to endure, let alone comprehend and take charge of. The trauma that you carry from a childhood woven by threads of addiction, temporary safety, fleeting moments of security, trust issues, and abandonment is nothing short of the heaviest things a person could carry on their back. Yet, you have carried all of it with grace. I, future you, am still healing these wounds and learning how deeply they have impacted every aspect of our life. You have set such a good example for me with the way you showed up and stuck up for yourself. Not just when in defense of yourself, but also with how you chose peace, consideration, and faith over anger, violence, and frustration. Even though your negative feelings were valid in all of the situations you were forced to deal with, the fact that you made the conscious effort to consistently stay optimistic has served me well with the mindset I’ve been able to cultivate in the current years. You raised yourself with little guidance or intervention from the adults in your life, which is something no child should have to learn how to do and you had no other choice but to do it. Yet, you did such a good job. You are not only allowed but also deserve to be proud of who you have become and are still in the process of becoming. Despite having nobody to turn to for so long, the struggles you faced and circumstances you had no control over, have never stood in your way of blossoming into a beautiful and kind-hearted person. The way you also never blamed a single person for the things you dealt with, not even those who probably deserved to be blamed, is admirable. I know it’s not the most light-hearted trait to celebrate but your resilience is what I love the most about you. Resilience is built up over time for most people but you have already proven to be stronger and more capable than many will ever have to be. For this, I am forever grateful to you.

Wide- eyed child.
Who are you now?
Jagged and smooth child,
Your arms twist and you twirl in the bright sunlight beaming through the window.
Your bulging eyes are put to rest
Shut them as you spin and jump and jive to a sweet melody from your father’s collection.
Pensive child!
Long nights spent in thoughtful stupor
Frantic scribblings of worry and love within the spiraled notebook
Machinations of your mind’s eye
In the form of jejune prose and self portraits.
Oh, you sweet child
Declarations of gratitude dedicated to all the love you’ve ever known-
Here is my origin! These are my makers. They love me and I adore them.
This is written on the countless of your attempts to recreate their image.
Your eyes swell up with love, you cry near every night into your pillow.
“Do they know how much they mean to me? My mother’s gracious eyes and my father’s crooked teeth peeking from his teasing smile?”
Yes, adored child, they know.
Wily child
Your existence is soaked in verve.
From your discombobulated image-
Milky, a crow’s coat sprouting from your excitable head
A pair of eyes that overwhelm their subjects
Fae footprints that dance over your nose and across both cheeks
You’re dressed in every color you have ever seen
Your small hands create testimonies of love, they write stories
Flowing from your bitten fingertips, your perception is exposed.
No one has ever been spared from your yearning to understand them
And your willingness to love them
Your readiness to show it
I have always loved you,
Vivacious and intriguing child
You follow me everywhere.
“Who am I now?”
You are the passion within me, you are love and you are naivety.
You are the giver of my admirations, you are the perceptive and the gracious.
The fire and awe within my soul, the desire to create, the willingness to love without regard.
The merciful and the impatient,
The petulant and the wondrous.
You keep me grounded
In a world that cannot ever be mine
But you and I will always be each other’s.
Oh, me, myself, my child
What I wouldn’t give to be held by your wide and merciful eyes.

You are so sweet,
So kind
So loving
You are so precious.
So beautiful
And so stunning.
Yet it is your soul that radiates
It is your vibrancy that gleams
From the inside
You are precious, a dainty little thing
Soft as a flower, gentle as a duckling.
You are so sweet, so kind, and so tender
This world tries to smother you down with it,
You keep me afloat during it all.
You remind me that peace, goodness, and love are qualities that should not be forgotten.
That even through the most trying of times, love should outweigh the pain.
Your forgiveness is awe-inspiring. You truly are too good to be true. You extend a hand to anyone in need and offer your strong back to carry the weight of others. You let your light guide your way, and it is captivating.
You are radiant.
A true gem
Light on earth.
Thank you for dancing through fields of dandelions and laughing every chance you get. Thank you for taking care of others and reminding everyone that kindness goes a long way. You are an inspiration to us all.
You are brave, bold, tenacious, and sometimes too hard on yourself.
You should allow others to see just how beautiful you can be.

I love you, endlessly.

Hello! Good Morning! Welcome awake!
She says to the world as she takes her place
She grins and smiles up at the sun
The journey begins, it’s 9:01
It’s a new day and the search begins
She’s looking for something she’ll find within
She looks under the tree where the faeries go,
Then by the lavender flowers that make her potions glow
Papas truck bed will make her fly
she’ll look all through the stars as she soars through the sky.
She’ll find it in the fort she and her sister made
Or maybe on her mother’s chest, where her head is laid.
She has it when she dances, spins, in the rain
It comes when daddy kisses away her pain
With a heart so big and a mind so wide
Her happiness is never hard to find
An amazing little girl the world gets to know
Just remember to keep looking for it as you grow.

Dear Former Self,

You will have many bumps and obstacles as you continue through life, but just remember your resilience and determination has gotten you to where you are now are key things to getting through turmoil in the future.

You have had Epilepsy since you were 1.5 years old and instead of hiding it from others and being afraid of it, your approach was much different. You wanted to educate yourself about it, advocate for the Epilepsy community, and adapt your lifestyle due to side effects of medicine and Epilepsy. For example, through school, you created your own test and did in parts, with repeating of various parts, over multiple days. You did not let Epilepsy hold you back. You averaged a B no matter the subject, course difficulty, or what else was going on in your life.

Some things you did as a child, that some might not do if they have Epilepsy or another disability, are you at some point or another played almost every sport, you travelled on a bunch of mission trips to places like Wyoming and Honduras that were not right next door, and you did water rides and amusement rides.

Your Seizures had been dormant for almost 8 years and then re-emerged at the end of your first semester of your Senior year of College. Through your resilience and determination, you still graduated on time, kept your grades up, and you stayed an officer in 3 different clubs.

Then you decided to get brain surgery. After you had brain surgery, your neurologist told you that by looking at your brain, he was surprised that you had made it as far as you had and as successfully as you had. Your approach after brain surgery was, like the rest of your life, to not throw in the towel. You did a lot of volunteer work in your community and then went to two part-time jobs and then went to one full-time job in another state.

Things again seemed dormant. You went almost 8 years seizure free again, you lived on your own, you were driving, you were working full-time, and then things changed. You had seizures re-emerge and had some other things happen in your life. You did not give up though. You kept working full-time, volunteering for organizations at a local and national level, and figured out many methods of transportation.

You have always been determined not to let Epilepsy defeat you. Keep it up.

From,

Matthew Steele

Feral and ferociously free.
Feet calloused from barefoot treks.

Hair matted with strawberry knees.
Climbing any tree limbs within reach.

Paying no mind to outward beauty.
Dwelling only in excitement.

And when the rains come.
It’s welcomed.

Grinning ear to ear.
Stomping through the mud with glee.

No fear, no bitterness.
Just feral and ferociously free.

The little one in me.

Dear Kelsey, I saw your tears,

In times of doubt and valid fears.

This letter is to show you how

Your tears have built what you have now.
They told you not to cry, to keep

Your tears for something more deep.

But still you cried, out of sight,

And used tears for your dreams’ delight.
Remember when you ran that race,

you went to the bathroom to have some space.
On the way back you were met with disdain,
You let their words fuel your pain.
A friend who turned her back so cold,

Her words, the sharpest, loudest bold.

Each bullet word, it pierced you through,

Yet stoic, strong, you never withdrew.
You took that hurt and raced ahead,

With lungs on fire, eyes seeing red.

You came in first, with pain as fuel,
Transforming hurt, your special tool.
Transmutation is your super power,

From tears, your strength blossoms like a flower.

Abuse, rejection, hate, and scorn,

All turned to love, a new you born.
What I love most about you is this,
You take pain and make happiness.
Your tears now form a mighty sea,

Of justice, love, and harmony.

You honor body, spirit whole,

An inspiration, from your heart and soul.
Fearless, towards your dreams you run,

With love, your journey’s just begun.

Authentic, true in all you do,

Forever, always, Kelsey, you.

Not a big deal, she said
Everybody does this she thought
But being creative is one of the biggest blessings
It means winning every school project
Escape with my aunt
Be proud of my accomplishments
The excitement of start to finish
The chocolate piano making music sing
The t-shirts of Percy Jackson fighting high in the sky
The valentines boxes impressing the judges
The special birthday cards for special people
The constant inspiration
The constant smiles
The constant love
The constant people
The constant showing off
Impressing the crowd

My Sunshine, I know it’s been a while.
I hadn’t have the time to see you.
I hadn’t have the time to listen to you,
Or watch you play.

My Sunshine, you’ll still light up my world when I see you next.
You’ll laugh like the tinkling drops of a sunshower against my dry skin.
You’ll sing like the scissortails playing across the grass fields of my lonely home,
Or you’ll give me gifts of hopeful flowers when I can’t bear to keep on marching.

My Sunshine, there’s no telling when we’ll see each other, maybe never again,
But wait for me one more day, one more week, one more hour. I’ll see you someday.

To little Cher:

I loved you young.
I love you now.
And I’ll love you old.

Every single version that has brought me to where I am today.
Where I was yesterday.
Where I will be tomorrow.

I love you.

Your unapologetic way of being you.
Each version of you.

From the first word I spoke to the word I am re-learning now…

“No.”
The word is “no.”

It shaped me.
It made me.
And now it’s changing me…
reverting me back into who I was.

I am becoming more and more me than I’ve ever been.

Full circle.

I am me re-becoming me.
Being born again into myself.

Re-learning how I unlearned boundaries.

I said “no.”
Did you hear me?
No, I don’t want it.
No, I don’t like it.
No, I don’t approve.

I protected my own peace.
I drew a very straight line with my “no.”
With my decisiveness.

Somewhere along the way I started to say “yes.”
Yes, even when I didn’t want it.
Even when I didn’t like it.
Even when I didn’t approve.

I tried to keep the peace.
My line was blurred by indecision.

By keeping the peace for everyone else I broke my own.
I destroyed myself pleasing everyone else.

No.
it came around again,
full circle.

My first word that later on I forgot how to say.

Return to your childhood self.
Become the real you.
The you that you were before the world changed you.

And I have.
Thank you little me.

I’m 30 now and I’m learning to say it again.
It gets easier every time.

You find your inner peace again.

Thank you little Cher, for the wisdom you’ve brought back.

~ Older Cher