Deep 

Deep inside the humid, hot forest

Lies a creature of black and orange

A line of colors that dash through the woods.

 

She keeps a jar of fireflies

Along with drawings

Nobody can see them except her

And if someone did, they probably wouldn’t like her anyway 

 

She runs past all the trees, not matter how big they are

She jumps across all the streams, no matter how wide they span

She kicks the dirt, sending fireworks of dust into the air

Zooming forward every second

No matter how hard it might be…

 

No matter how the air sticks to her fur 

As if dancing through a cloud on a hot summer day

 

No matter how annoying the swarm of little fierce warriors seems to follow,

The dash of color continues under the stars.

 

Battling through the scratches 

Through the trips and falls

Finding her way through the wrong paths

The thought of stopping never staying for long

 

Sometimes

Wishing she was

A rabbit, jumping high above the obstacles

Or a bird, soaring beyond the forest

A monkey, clever and guile

So she could avoid the twigs and branches always in her way.

 

Sometimes she forgets how to talk to the birds 

and how to listen to the sounds of the forest.

How to sit still take a break

 

Thinking

It would be nice to

Just relax.

And it’s okay to.

 

It all seems so far away

It's hard to

To keep trying

To reach the north star 

Keep dreaming

 

Nevertheless, she keeps going

Driven by the power of ambition

Even if the north star is far away, she never stops trying

 

One day

The creature of fire against coal

Watches

As a unexpected parrot knocks the jar out of her claws 

Shattering the glass keeping her in

 

So that she hears the forest again

As a flower blossoms within 

 

And the parrot watches with kindness

As the creature of black and orange

Fire against coal

A tiger

Glows and sparkles like the stars

And with the help of others

Shakes the earth

With her thunderous roar.