Some days weigh us down.

Some days, you feel an ache in that spot in your back where there could be wings, and instead there’s the weight of the world, the weight of your world, the weight of waiting… Some days it’s just too much. After too many times of trying and failing, loving and falling, being broken by life until we’re in a million pieces, it seems too hard. We don’t think we have what it takes. We start to fear we’ll never fly.

But the wings we need can’t be bought in stores. No one else can give them to us (and no one can take them from us).

We make our own wings around here.

We’ve stopped waiting for the right time.

We’ve stepped to the edge and looked down.

We’ve taken all our bits of dreams, duct tape and chicken wire;

Scribbles in margins, late night scheming and the fear in the pit of our stomachs;

Sweat, tears and feathers lovely blackbirds left behind

And put them all together

To make our own wings.

We’ve stopped waiting for permission

To be bigger

To be bolder

To create.

And instead, we wrote our own ticket.

(Because that’s what we do in these parts.)

We are the ones who stay hungry

Stay on our toes, tip-toed at the edge

With half-broken, rigged together wings

We’ve made ourselves.

And then we leap.

For Tara, who forgot for a moment about her wings.