Smile when you feel the sunlight...

While you are upstairs sharpening your number two pencils and
doodling in your notebook about how you
hate
this small town

I

am listening to a song that follows the beat of my gum
pops and flip
flops and I'm
sharing it with the dandelions on the roadside

While you plot a secret escape to India

I

am constructing a tiny Taj Mahal out of
rotten pecan shells and I've got
plans to
expand

While you stare bleary eyed at your window trying to figure out what is wrong with the world

I

feel what's right falling like
moth tears
and my skin undulates with every ramshackle
dance move that finds my feet and

I

wear a honeysuckle perfume that drives the bees
wild and

I

rummage through the leaves
like a child in grandma's attic so
happy
to re-awaken her old treasures and

you

might
find me
on your doorstep one day wiping the gravel from my
knees

because while

you

were comparing
flight prices

I

(chased a lion)
(wrote a novel)
(planted a tree)
(planted a forest)
(kissed a whale)

traveled.