Runoff Water

My dad grounds coffee beans at 5:30 in the morning with me before my zero hour and I don’t drink coffee (it’s for my mom) but the sun hasn’t risen so we count the stars on our way out and its never cloudy out here in the desert except on his birthday when I painted the constellations that you can see from our front door and gave them to him.

My mom is back in college online and she’s stressing over writing papers but she’ll come out with these grand ideas and tangents of research and all she really wants is to help people so I always try to give the details when she asks me how my day was which I sometimes think is selfish but I know she wants to know everything about me and all her friends from high school think I’m a carbon copy and it makes me laugh.

Abby made cookies the other day and I cried to my mom because I felt so loved when she gave me one and Melanie gave me a little pin that says “girls kick brass” because she plays the trumpet and I play the tuba and I almost cried on the bus to the game and it was Victor’s last one and I know his senior year sucked but I did my best to thank him and I shook his hand and God I haven’t shook hands in so long and he told me Billy was still alive and I let out a sigh of relief because I always worry about that kid and Dakota told me to just let go and dye my hair every color I’ve ever wanted to so maybe I will if I get any color this Christmas.

And I know I’m only 16 and thats the time when you’re supposed to never want to be like your parents or other girls or anyone who isn’t popular when you grow up but maybe I just want to own a house and grind coffee and dye my hair and shake hands and bake cookies and have a kid and be in love yes so in love but it’s hard and I don’t want to rush through my teen years because I only get one chance and it scares me so i have to find a balance between being able to look back without cringing and being able to look back at all because being memorable is risky and being risky is memorable and I’m so full of love but I have trouble communicating it and I hate being alone I hate it so much but I love to be by myself so I have to find a balance but I’m scared to think that maybe there isn’t one.

Oh God what if there isn’t one?

But I’ve got so much in this world and I’m unprepared and unwilling to lose it just for the sake of comfort because they’re worth it all of them are worth it and I’m a little weird and I stare a little too long and I don’t always know to say and my aptitude for jokes waxes and wanes and disappears but I love you so I love you and I love you.