Eighteenth

“April 18, 2014: Dear Journal, I followed a cardinal today. It landed gently on the rim of my baseball helmet. Startled, I cursed, and it instantly darted towards an unknown road, leaving behind a single crimson feather. There are signs in life that simply possess you. I chased it deep into the suburban jungle, where overgrown shrubs scratched my legs and the humid air sapped my muscles dry. I was a ship on a siren’s call, following until I finally crashed into a vast open field, and there – like crimson petals on blades of grass, was my cardinal, and a dozen others. An intense stillness took over me. I had walked into an Eden, a picture of heaven. A brave one hopped toward me with a dandelion in its beak. I gently grasped it and I could feel its thumping heart in perfect rhythm with my own: boom, boom, boom. I let out a heavy sigh. Out with the suffocating desires of the senior heart – wealth, security, employment. In came a soft, warm smile. It was then that I graduated from adolescence.  Not back in 2009, or in the coming May. Not towards a higher level of learning or wisdom, but, towards something natural. I graduated back into child-like wonder. For today, I am truly free.” – Phillip Jo

Bio: I’m 2014 graduate of Emory University and a 6 year old Muslim who enjoys reading, writing, stories, and physics.