A Toast

To pewter-colored skies
and balconies on which to sit
and stand and cry,
and talk and write and breathe
To Louisiana sunsets and humid nights
and the scent of jasmine carried
by a breeze

To being soaked through and chilled
to the bone
by the rain
and still walking through it
To pushing past our pain
to the other side of the storm,
where it is safe and warm

To belonging to someone— to anyone—
to anything— to anywhere

To those who have come before us
and those who will come after
To the echoes of their laughter
and to laughter not yet heard
and to memories not yet made
and to visions not yet seen

To wine, red and white and
in between

To owning everything you are
and everything you do
To claiming your talents
and never being ashamed of celebrating
the joy of being you

To knowledge and nostalgia
To handwritten letters and
postage stamps and ink and
paper; to flesh and bone
To starry, starry nights
To soft lips and strong hands
and to the symbolic lights
that guide us home

To curves in all the right places
To curves that seem out of place
but are phenomenally beautiful anyway
To unconventional beauty—
To our duty to see the good
in all of humankind

To the golden light at dusk that
magically transforms all it touches
into something more
To the thunderstorms that beat
against you
but have yet to break you

To the open highway and
the roads that we all must take
and to the ones less taken
To impressions that we make
and to the carefully chosen words
that make or break our fate

To the quiet, secret world we see
when the moon shows her face
and we cannot sleep
To never knowing the full depth
of the oceans,
or the full height
of the mountains,
To those mysteries and the secrets
that we keep
To the fireworks that pop and crack
as we delight in the excitement
and raise our heads to see
the scenes that unfold above—

And most of all,
I raise my glass
And make a toast 

To love 

What am I?

I am a Menthos dropped into a Diet Coke.  I am an arrow released from the tension of the bow.  I am vinegar poured over baking soda.  I am a stone flying from the strap of a slingshot.

I am 25,000 words (25,245, to be exact) into a 50,000 word "novel."  I am sleep deprived and doing 800 things at once.  I am one month (and one day...) away from graduating from college.  I am standing on the threshold of the rest of my life.  I am, naturally, doing this every single day, but I am now extremely conscious of it.

I am both desperate for and repulsed by complacency.  I am tiny in my fear, and I am enormous in my love for life.  I am cowering before all that faces me, and I am revealing myself to the vastness of the world.  I am contradictory in my nature.

I am singing into the wind; I am hiding my face; I am screaming into the void; I am treading lightly; I am disturbing the universe; I am avoiding it altogether; I am rambling.

I am terrified, I am excited, I am anxious, I am impatient, I am hesitant, I am curious, I am afraid.

The question that remains is, am I ready?