I believe in the broken. I believe in the mismatched unconventional things that the binoculars often looking at the greener grass on the other side often overlook. I believe in the seed that can grow from the most tarnished of soils and become a grand yellow tulip.

I guess I believe this way because I believe I was that seed and still am.

A piece of paper is supposed

To span

Across a length 

Of space.

But

When

Every day I watch as family, friends, and strangers fill their garbage bins full. Recycling becomes second priority and litter, a convenience to some. I see the plastic bags stuck in trees or the plastic bottles and cans lining the water’s edge. There is literally a garbage patch in the middle of the pacific ocean-spanning over 1.6 million square kilometers. 

Knowing all this and more about our pollution crisis, I could not bring myself to send away the plastics I knew would never live purposefully again, their fates sealed by the trash can. I began keeping most of all usable waste I found: cereal bags, balloons, bottle caps, empty paint tubes, wraps from my sprained ankle, plastic bags, guitar strings and tons more.

Friendship.

The thing many of us value beyond all else. The binding agent that makes us feel whole. That makes us laugh. That makes us smile. That makes us care. That keeps us alive. The complex bond between humans that is supposed to mean something.

 Mean what?

Everytime I look in a mirror or see myself in a reflection, I smile.

No, it is not because I am in love with my looks.
I judge myself for every small self-defined imperfection.
Whether that be my Pinnochio length nose
Or thin lips
Or puffy cheeks
Or inconsistent eyebrows
Or pimples that never seem to go away
Or eyes that are not the same size

Whatever it is that day, I still try and smile.

Every day that passes, my appreciation and observation of the artful complexities in the world around me grows. I am not sure if this is just my brain growing as it develops with age or me simply seeing more than I have before. It’s probably a combination of both. I used to just view everything as a useless creation that should not hold the power and strength that that particular thing does. I would discredit the creator perhaps out of jealousy and comparison to myself. Though I do disagree with the heightened appraisal of popular figureheads in society, the work people do produce should be appreciated.

Today my report card came in. Junior year. The last year that counts for class rank at my high school. I looked down the line seeing the final grades of each class: 97, 98, 97, 98, 98, 98, 100, 100. All the numbers look good, but I have never felt more unfulfilled from seeing a 97 or 98 repeated over and over. These numbers used to fill me with pride and designate my accomplishments, but now they are no less foreign than trying to read a dialect that is not my native tongue.