Kick Drum Heart

Thank God for my persistent mother who’s making me leave school now.

Thank God for my good friend David who stayed with me in Propp’s room.

Thank God for my hero K.T. who insists that boys should like me.

Thank God for my new buddy Colton who keeps cracking me up even though I feel so, so stupid.

Thank God for silly rubber chickens for being so hysterical when all I want to do is drop my head down on this desk.

Thanks for keeping my head from drifting off into romanticism. Thanks for the headache that says, get Christmas presents finished. Thanks for the weight in my heart that makes me reevaluate why I want a boy so badly.

It’s so dumb. But it’s so justifiable.

I want to live. I look at a photo with a red bandana, and I think live. I think, be. I think, hold close and tight everything that has value, and never stop searching for more.

So thank God.

Thank God for my cousin Daniel, because if he’d never impacted my life, I’d be living and it wouldn’t even count.