Every great story has a beginning, middle, and end. Not necessarily in that order. We are all great stories.

Chapter 394, the boy, hair still long, fingers still too short, is 98 years old. Sits at a restaurant alone. The stranger sitting next to him is eating bread pudding, the boy’s favorite. The boy takes his fork, sticks it in the stranger’s meal, and takes a bite.

Chapter 14, the boy is seven years old. He and his best friend have a great idea for a prank. They are sure they will not get caught. The next morning, every house on the street has toilet paper in the front yard, except for his own. They get caught.

Chapter 146, and the boy and the girl live happily ever after.

Chapter 231, and the boy and the girl vow never to speak to each other again.

Every great story has a beginning, middle, and end. Not necessarily in that order. We are all great stories, though not all written as chapter books.

I know, there are hours not meant to be bound. When we have scribbled too much in the margins to read our own page numbers, like…

The night you thought you were invincible. Ran out into the lightning storm with a million keys, tied to a million kites, and a clench in your jaw that says, “Take me with you, damn it, I dare you.”

Or the weeks when you finally reached out to feel your father’s cheeks and just found papercuts.

I know the nights we shatter hourglasses to fall asleep. The afternoons we take photographs of our own shadows, just to prove that we left a mark.

But I stay awake. Reminding myself the wetness of my own lips. That I am a leaf off of the tree of my parents’ first kiss. And if I hold my shrubs to the sky, I can still see their veins there.

Every great story has a beginning, middle, and end, not necessarily in that order.

Chapter 189, the boy, too old now to celebrate his birthdays, and too young to treasure them, uses his fists. Punches his own reflection to see if it is real. Breaks his hand, back into the opposite of a fist. A conch shell of sinew. Puts it to his ear and can hear the ocean of his own bloodline.
Stand up, boy. Not just with your legs. Be your own story. You, magnificent page turner. You, six hundred words per minute. You, never stop to read the back cover even though you know what happens at the end.

Chapter 431, once upon a time there was a boy. He is not here anymore. But the branches he left all hold their leaves to the sky, and you can see the outline of his shadow on the sidewalk.

Prologue. Once upon a time, there was a woman and a man, and the first night they kissed, a seedling blossomed from the back of her neck.