when I was five years old,

I learned how to read

and I learned how to write.

I took my a's, and my b's

and my most favorite of all

K's

and I made my name.

I liked the way it looked

on the page.

when I was seven years old,

I learned how to pretend.

I was a teacher, a doctor, a mother

a friend.

I liked the way it felt

to imagine.

I was a balloon that had just been let go of,

nobody knew

where I would end up.

Somewhere in space,

where the stars danced

and they would whisper their secrets,

or maybe just close enough

to the brilliance of the sun,

hoping it's smile would tell me.

A lost girl

in this big, wide world.

when I was ten years old,

I learned how to dream.

I saw the beauty in the small things.

my mother's smile in the morning

over her cup of coffee,

the crimson red of the rose I got

after my dance recital,

the big A on my paper,

and I still remember when

my favorite teacher told me

that I was gonna be somebody someday.

when I was eighteen years old,

I learned how to love.

I let it have me,

all of me.

Love swallowed me up

and embraced me

in it's warm arms

that wouldn't let me go.

It was sunsets,

starry nights,

the smell of turning

a new book's pages,

the fourth of July,

it was a love for the ages.

When I was eighteen years old,

I learned how to break.

the earth crumbled

in the shaking palm of the hand

he used to hold.

and the air that continued to fill

the empty spaces of my lungs

felt like knives.

When I was eighteen years old,

I learned how to heal.

I learned how to hold the threads of my heart

and I took those pins

and I pulled,

and I mended,

and I weaved,

every day,

until I was okay

again.

When I was eighteen years old,

love found me again.

Hiding behind the big old oak tree

were the carvings I used to make.

There was a "K"

barely distinguishable,

and fading,

it's presence showed me that it wasn't leaving.

No matter how many times

I had collapsed upon

it's underbrush

and fell apart.

So then,

I drew an "R" beside it,

and it looked like an old friend.

I am still only eighteen years old.

I have learned how to read,

to write,

to laugh,

to cry,

how to care,

how to dream,

how to love,

and how to break.

But there is still one thing

I never learned.

and that is okay.

I might never know

what it really, truly is.

I find pieces of it

in my mother's smile

the smell of a new book's pages,

the fourth of July,

when he says "I love you"

the click-clicking of the keys

as I write this to you.

From the bottom of my heart,

I hope you find

pieces of yours too.