She ran out into the light
suprised,
her arms are open- her mind's eye is
seeing things from a better side
than most can dream

and then I laughed, thanks to life, I laughed. Because in this sixteen-year-old brain, just a sliver of a warm ray of clarification and understanding will sometimes slip through the cracks of confusion and childhood, and it will warm the golden fields of innocence and teendom that linger and blossom there.

I'm never told "You'll understand when you're older," it's just assumed. But how much will I really understand? Can experience and age really compare to the instinctual innocence and imagination of a child?

Do you understand life, Mr. Mailman?

Why does it make sense that tacking on a few more years would ever help one with the ability to wrap their brain around this world and its mysteries? I say, leave it to a five-year-old to solve such mysteries. When a five-year-old is simple and unrefined and free of blemishes, free of scars, and there's no rush deciding on optimism, pessimism, or realism - there's just serenity.

Are we blind-sided by the world's biased bruises that we accquire as life's "experiences" knock us down? And as we reach sixteen, will our confusion and stubbornness envelop our na