It's summer, and my heart is a carnival.

It's summer, and my heart is a carnival.

There are fireworks going in my veins, sending sparks where my blood should be flowing. I feel like I'm on top of a ferris wheel, so high that I can see the city lights twinkling from a far distance. So high that I'm wishing you'd hold my hand, an assurance that if I ever fall, I will never fall alone.

The inch of space between us feels like a huge boulder, a rock hard mountain I have to climb to see you smile again. To feel the thrill of a roller coaster ride, where excitement and fear fight to dominate my emotions. I will not close my eyes; I don't want to miss a second of being with you.

I feel like someone is making spun sugar in my stomach. My breaths are shallow, calculated, as if I'm a kid again, walking on eggshells to catch a dragonfly. I keep my eyes away from yours because I'll blush if I don't, and then you'll know.

You make me smile, and you shook the ground beneath my feet when I saw you. Now, I feel the stones slowly fall into a cliff below, where I see nothing but uncertainty. I'm scared of falling, because this time, it might just actually hurt more than it did the first time.

At the end of the day, when the lights are out, and there are no more darts, pellet guns, and toy prizes, and we're back on the ground where everything is a lot bigger than they seem, I need to know that magic can still happen. I need to know that someone like you can fall for someone like me.

It's always darkest before the dawn.

Today, I've learned about a baby named Avery, who was diagnosed with a fatal disease. That's not the sad part. The sad part is, I've learned about her after her disease took her away.

I can't, for the life of me, I can't read one post of that blog without crying my heart out. Here was a 5 month old baby who faced death before anyone could have ever said she was alive, and she faced it with a smile. Most of us, we go through the motions complaining about minor inconveniences, thoroughly taking for granted the fact that we're all perfectly healthy, while she woke up each morning knowing, feeling that it might be her last day on Earth, but she never let that tale away her smile. She was even thankful for bad hair days.

Avery's story breaks my heart. I don't have a child, and I'm not a parent, but it hurts me so much to think of all the surgeries her fragile little body had to go through just so she could live. Just so she could do those small things on her bucket list that I do everyday, and I never even notice. It breaks my heart that I've never had a chance to know her before she had to go. I've only seen her pictures, read her story, and still, I feel like I've known her all my life.



To you, little angel Avery, wherever you are right now, I just want you to know that you have touched my life, and that I think I will always be thinking of you, of the way you made me smile. You're one of the strongest people I've ever seen. I wish I had the pleasure of meeting you personally, but it doesn't matter so much now. Your life, although cut short, has altered mine in a way I can't begin to explain. You're beautiful, Avery, and I'm going to name my daughter after you as soon as I have one.

Rest in peace, sunshine.