the healing game
is not a game 
at all
it is two kind words
a supporting smile
a warm embrace
I am here for your pain
as I have been here
for your joys.
time heals
friends stand by
until the healing game
is over.

devil’s child

To start out life on the war torn streets of Sierra Leone and end up a rising star of the ballet world seems an impossible feat, but 19-year-old Michaela DePrince, currently a member of the Dutch National Ballet’s junior company, has been proving the impossible possible her entire life. 

Orphaned at age 3 during the midst of Sierra Leone’s 11-year civil war, Michaela was called the “

devil’s child” by orphanage workers and ostracized for her skin condition, vitiligo, which leaves unpigmented spots covering her chest and neck. It was at the orphanage, as Michaela describes below, that she first discovered her life’s passion:

“I found the magazine lying on the ground outside the gate of the orphanage, I’d never seen anything like that before, so I took the cover off and put it in my underwear because I had nowhere else to put it... I kept the picture with me every day until I got adopted. It kept me going and believing and looking forward to something, because I was going through so much at the time. I thought I was just worth nothing and nothing’s going to happen. This person in the photograph symbolized hope for me.”

Soon after she was adopted by an American family who encouraged her blossoming talent in dance. At age six, the determined Mighty Girl won a scholarship to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of the American Ballet Theatre after competing against 5,000 other dancers in the prestigious Youth American Grand Prix. She was also one of the six dancers profiled in the 2011 documentary “First Position.” In 2012, at 17, she became the youngest dancer at Dance Theatre of Harlem, and, this past summer, took a position with the Amsterdam-based ballet. 

Michaela is well on her way to achieving her greatest dream -- becoming the principal ballerina in a dance company. And, after her dance career ends, she hopes to share the gift of dance with others by opening a dance school in Sierra Leone. Wherever she ends up, we know this incredible young woman will continue to show the power of determination, hard work, and hope when given the opportunity to shine!

via A Mighty Girl

I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. 

They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. 

They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. 

They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.

Neil Gaiman The Sandman, Vol 9

uncomplication

kiss a stranger
in the dark
steal a car
write a song
dance to it
ride a train
to anywhere
watch the waves
live a dream
smile for no reason
swim under the moonlight.
has the stranger
become your lover
yet?

As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad - to be willing to risk everything to really express it all.

John Cassavetes

My wild love went riding

your city

your sidewalks

your screams on the roller coaster

I have a new story

how I briefly met your nipples

and hid your glasses

under a chair

so you wouldn't leave the room.

I started to watch a movie

every word on the script was

what I should tell you

to make you understand

I pressed pause

so we could watch it together.

I can make clouds disintegrate

I can draw a scary shark

on a tablecloth

I will not keep you awake

when you need to rest.

birds do not make mistakes

when they fly

and love is a word.

p.s. kisses are rarely wrong and they NEVER lie.

find the others

Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. 

But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the ‘normal people’ as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like ‘Have a nice day’ and ‘Weather’s awful today, eh?’, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like ‘Tell me something that makes you cry’ or ‘What do you think déjà vu is for?’ Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? 

Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others.

Timothy Leary