Dandelions

    Tabby grew in a place that nobody ever seemed to noticed. She made her home under the shimmering summer sky, protected by arching branches above her and cold dirt underneath her feet. The warped aspens waved merrily down as she gazed and gazed up into those woeful heavens. She made pictures with the clouds, wars with the gnats, and friends with herself.
    Nobody ever noticed that place Tabby called home, nestled snugly in a little corner folded off into the world. Only Tabby saw the sun sing itself to sleep and the moon drift home after fishing in a starry sea. She was never lonesome, with the rustling of the wind she gained the only company she'd ever need.
     She grew into a fine little miss that Tabby, all by herself with not another soul in sight. One day, when her nose was tickled by the bees and the lady bugs played in her hair, she got scared. It couldn't have been the bugs, or the breeze, or the sweet taste of rain that frightened Tabby. No, no it wasn't that at all. She was afraid of herself. So afraid, she had to hide away.
    That day well her golden locks ran in the wind and her body drank in the wild flowers, she realized it couldn't possibly be that way forever. If it wasn't going to be forever, she didn't see the sense in letting herself enjoy her home for one second more if by chance it would one day be taken all away. Tabby didn't want to feel that sting of remorse when the time came for her to leave her magical home, where the dew drops tasted like honey and the cotton wafted just so beautifully that any sniffles you might catch didn't seem awful. So she hid within herself.
    Staying in the same place, with her little body bent inward, she refused to think about how lovely the grass was and how sweetly the sunlight danced across the leaves. No, she would only think about herself, how awful she felt, how terrible the world around her was. Soon Tabby twisted herself up so tight, she couldn't recall what the light felt like at all. Deep in her darkness Tabby began to change. Her hair wasn't pretty like before, her face was much too gaunt for anyone to adore. Pretty Tabby had gone and taken away with her any innocence she had ever possessed.
    After enduring the turmoil and agony of herself, she forgot to realize those little pieces of her that made her whole. Bit by bit, Tabby fell away. Crisp and white all her bliss and joy drained high up into the sky, dancing on the fringes of her imagination; an imagination she refused to use now that her pessimistic reality coiled her tighter and tighter around herself.
    Sitting in the softest dirt with a sun-speckled sky, Tabby didn't feel the gust that drove her happiness away. She couldn't grasp out with her fingertips to feel the warm embrace of the wind as it scooped up her vibrant prayers and sent them far, far away. Tabby never looked back with regret in her life, as she had never lived it.
    Yet somewhere near, perhaps with a shimmering summer sky, thousands of bright-faced girls watched the clouds. Hoping that maybe someday, after learning about themselves and nurturing their children with all they had; they could see their babies drift away, dancing through the springily zephyr and into a lifetime all their own.