eleven

I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely years.

The truth does not need a number of supporters for authenticity. One person among the lot can be the only truthful out of the ten; 11 people out of 12 may be on the truthful side. However, the truth is the truth irrespective of how many people like to embrace it!

Every time you look up at the stars, it__ like opening a door. You could be anyone, anywhere. You could be yourself at any moment in your life. You open that door and you realize you__e the same person under the same stars. Camping out in the backyard with your best friend, eleven years old. Sixteen, driving alone, stopping at the edge of the city, looking up at the same stars. Walking a wooded path, kissing in the moonlight, look up and you__e eleven again. Chasing cats in a tiny town, you__e eleven again, you__e sixteen again. You__e in a rowboat. You__e staring out the back of a car. Out here where the world begins and ends, it__ like nothing ever stops happening.

The summer I turned eleven, I found out that ghosts are real. Guess it's hard to rest nice and easy in your coffin if you got stuff on your mind. Your soul stays chained to earth instead of zipping up to heaven to sing in one of the angel choirs. Sometimes ghosts show up in the msot peculiar places. Sometimes ghosts fool you. Then you are those ghosts that hang around because we have unfinished business. Business that sinks like old crawfish left in a bucket for a week. That's some nasty smell let me tell you. But the most important thing I learned is that ghosts can help you spill your guts before guilt eats you up and leaves a hole that can't ever be fixed no matter how many patches you try to steam iron across it.

We're all stories, in the end.