This
day dawns with a number dangling over my head. I brush it away like cobwebs in
a dark cave. There is far too much brightness in this room to refuse to move
onward. The time might be ticking away but I can still try to outrun it.

            I
inhale and feel light. I sigh not out of desperation but out of relief.

            The
blank page no longer scares me. It offers so many opportunities.

            The
lonely stage no longer threatens me. Now I know where to stuff my fears.

            Sometimes
the bones creak and sometimes the muscles crush. Sometimes the everything
that’s in front of me threatens to fall and scatter around like a burning
building. But I keep going, keep moving, keep aspiring, keep creating.

            These
limitations can only make me stronger. These lights out can only make me burn
brighter in the darkness. The still of midnight only makes me want to make some
noise.

            I
refuse to go quiet in the night.

            I
was quiet in my younger days. The darkness filled me and followed me around and
I tried to make sense of it.

            I still can see shadows and can still hear the sound of silence. But I can skip
over those things because I know more and I’m smarter and I’m faster and I
still can dance.

            So
I dance and I make noise and my heart swells.

            There
is no number that can define my soul and my spirit. There is no age that’s
stamped onto love and passion.

             I have only begun to build the bridges.
I have only started to sing the choruses. The verses and the melodies are all
there, simmering and smoldering inside.

            Don’t
define me, world. Don’t box me in, life.

            Let
me continue to live out verse after verse and put a few of them down into song.

            We
are as young as we believe, but we know so much more, too. So much more, with
so much more to share.