The Inner Light.

There are two parts to who I am…

The person that you see on the outside, and the person that you get to know that lives within me.
The hot Texas sun makes my brown skin glisten, making me shine brighter, but some days not bright enough.
It takes a huff and puff from leafs of this earth to get me to a transcendental place that allows my inner self to come out and play.

I connect with who I really am underneath this now-orange skin.
This feeling of warmth and love and awareness runs through my lungs, back up my throat, out into my atmosphere and back in through my nose. It makes my heart race, gives me wide eyes, and makes me accountable for every breath in and every breath out.

I blink and I am back to a Saturday night, 20 years ago in the living-dinning of our tiny red-velvet apartment. I see the shape of the toy behind the book sitting up in front of the cushion. The color is the same auburn-brown that made up my mothers plastic ware. I can touch all five of its edges. I pick it up and walk it over to another part of our living-dinning. Maybe I’ll place it on the mesh chair where my little sister won’t be able to find it and where I’ll spot it when I’m ready to play with it again.
I can smell my mother in the kitchen.
I look around and I don’t see my father.
Same background noise of cartoons being played over the quiet of the walls of our home, at the same time every day.
My mother is thoughtful
The phone rings. His voice comes through and she lights up.

With eyes already open, I wake up. Every nerve ending, every sensation, every smell and emotion has travelled with me to the past where I can always be a part of the scene that is happening in the play that my life has been, that is and that will be.