Gold Drenched and Singing

by Jasmine Zheng, 16

We’ve found ourselves standing 

in a world of melting clocks,

Do you ever think of what we might be if our world were too small to fit us?

Wandering thoughts confined and conversations held

with words that we just can’t seem to speak–of confusion and dreams and time.

But here, time does not exist

I remember                skipping through piles of autumn leaves

A satisfying underfoot crunch and

My hair, the black of midnight,

                        Absorbing sunset warm and golden

      The whole world beamed around me

Delicious peach-apricot sky 

                                        outlined in tangerine

     I’d hoped my laughter would travel far beyond the firelight tinted hills 

                          Out to the entire velvet void

                                                    For anyone—though I hadn’t imagined who—

                       To share that wondrous joy

Courage is being lit aglow in colors of delectable fruits

When you do what is right, not what is easy

                      Then, you feel the childish happiness that comes 

from leaves crackling under small shoes.

In the end, I doubt I was loud enough to even alert the trees, but

                              Thank you, courageous younger me

    That laugh may not have traveled as far as I had hoped

But at least it stayed with me

gold drenched and singing

                                 for all the years to come.