She Was a Girl

     She was a girl who said she was everything. She said she could do anything she wanted to. She said her eyes held the stars, her hands the sun and moon, and her voice the fate of lives.

     She said she could read our future with her small deck of cards. She'd lay them out one by one on the table before us, and told us to hold our palms out. She said she couldn't tell us what might happen, but that she could warn us of what we could expect.

     When we asked her what she meant and who she might be, she laughed and shook her head and said she was many things. She said she was a poet, a musician, a writer, and if we listed more things, she'd say she was all of the above.

     And she was a girl who was as simple as the rest of us. Yet, she gave herself so many titles so she could feel special. She said she liked to read, but didn't want to leave it at that. So she wrote stories, designed worlds, so she could be different. At the time, I didn't understand what she meant, what she was on about. I was just as confused as the next girl over when we listened to her rant.

     She had said she could bring people together with a guitar and piano. She said a song was all we needed to let the world know that we were human. She was human. But we all laughed in her face. How can someone so different create a better world for us to live in?

     But then came the titles. If you weren't something, then you were nothing. People began to look towards her because she was everything. And then we started to worry. She was ten steps ahead. We couldn't catch up.

     And now I get it, because one day she stopped me. She took my hand, grabbed my arm, and that's when she told me, "I was a girl once. I wanted to be everything. But I don't have eyes like the stars, and my hands have gone weak.

     "All I have is my deck of cards, but I'm not all of the above. You know, girls grow up to be women. And you were a girl once."

     Right. I must've forgotten. She's not the only one. But she was different. She was a girl who said she was everything. She said her eyes held the stars, her hands the sun and moon and that she could read your future with her small deck of cards that always sat on the right hand side of the table.

     She was a girl who said she was everything. And everything is what I wanted to be.