Undeniable Existence

I often think of myself as a sunflower planted in the soil, waiting to grow up. But yesterday I blinked and I was already up, grown and growing. Today I wanted nothing more than to pick my petals off and disappear into the earth. Plant me again so I can reinvent myself. I may rise to be a sunflower every time, but let me cocoon into the soil and dream of what I can be. I think I like being a sunflower but sometimes I need a break from me. Sometimes I need space to create anew. 

I have become weary chasing the sun through the sky every day until it falls off the edge of the earth and leaves me in darkness. I am rooted in this ground, bending and swaying towards the light which makes me me. This light that shares my name and renders me claimless when it disappears into the night. The stars do not know me nearly as well. But I know them, for I have looked upon them night after night, asking them to hold witness to my prayers while I wait for the sun to return. All of this is to say that I am grown and growing.

All of this is to say that I am grown and growing.

This is what I want out of life, this becoming, and yet when I get what I ask for it is hardly what I am prepared for. Instead of stretching me towards the sky when I beg for height, I am drenched in rain- steady in its fall, taking time like it has no where else to engulf. Sometimes the next storm hits before I can drain the water from the last one. Other times the rain comes down so relentless and heavy I cannot breathe until I am abruptly left high and dry with no clouds in sight. Still, when I take the time to measure myself I have been pulled closer to the sky, despite the rain and the drought. 

It is an exhilarating way to exist- traveling between extremes. It is an exhausting way to exist-travelling between extremes. It is existence, undeniable in its form. For that fact, I sing alleluia. Ripped out of my lungs, scraping along my throat, sticky off my tongue. I sing alleluia, on the heels of my tears, washed away by the rain that left me a couple petals incomplete. I sing alleluia as the sun rises and tries to mend my broken body. I sing alleluia as the darkness rocks me to sleep and the soil cradles my roots. I sing again and again. Into the ground. Into the sky. I sing because I can. Because I am, I sing.

-K