If I’m Lucky Enough

Inspired by Zach Bryan’s “Lucky Enough” poem. 

If I’m lucky enough, I will sit beneath pink clouds and watch the sun disappear below the horizon, its rosy glow melting across the evening sky. My nights will be wrapped in warm summer breezes, burnt by the constellations above. My mornings will be slow, with blueberry pancakes and cinnamon foam-topped coffees. Daylight spilling through my hands and waking my skin.

I will explore both the great wonders of the world and the tiny corners of it, and find that most times they are one and the same. I will swim in warm waters off the coast of France. Walk along the Dubai skyline. Float over the Masai Mara in a hot air balloon. Take a midnight bike ride through a neighborhood in Florence. I will be kind and open-minded, gentle with the new and unfamiliar cultures that I discover. I’ll eat their food, dance to their music, and I will leave a little better, a little more fulfilled than when I arrived. 

If I’m lucky enough, I’ll memorize the way the light comes through my kitchen window, bathing the room in a soft, golden glow. My shelves will be full of books, my walls covered in photographs with worn edges. Magnets on the fridge, colorful flowers in vases. A messy kind of perfect. 

If I’m lucky enough, I will make things happen. Make up for lost time. Make amends. Make a difference. Make a mess of things. Make the best of things. 

I will sit at an open-air table sipping on Coronas at that old college bar, the one down the street with the blue umbrellas. Front porches will hold my best friend and me as we drink corner-store champagne straight from the bottle. Grad caps resting on our heads, tears watering our eyes, nostalgia bleeding into the air. We’ll be reminded of the rarity of the moment, the rarity of the friendship as we stare up into the Colorado sky. 

If I’m lucky enough, my dinners will be crowded and loud. Chairs leaned back, corks popping, and glasses rattling. Stories of stolen white Cadillacs and Pine Bluff bar fights. Times when we snuck in, the times we snuck out. The music of laughter filling the space between us.

I will hold the hands of my dearest friends as we sit in cheap camping chairs under a blanket of stars, and watch as the fire pit embers jump and dance in the dark like gymnasts in the sky. Johnny Cash singing through the static, walking the line right towards Sue. Moonlight tears, throat-burning whiskey. “We’ve got you,” they’ll say, holding me soft, while the grief grabs me hard. Lost in Folsom Prison Blues.  

If I’m lucky enough, I will take a train through a Salt Lake sunrise. Drink Tusker beer in Kenya around a deck of scattered cards. Sing Billy Joel alongside my Dad at a San Francisco dive and cry during a Seattle rainstorm. I’ll see the magic of New York City after midnight. Wine-charged Saturday nights dancing beneath the halo of neon lights, Doc Martens stomping on glittered floors. I’ll feel the streets come alive, the city pulsing beneath my feet.

I will drive through winding mountain roads during the late days of summer, Aspen trees passing in a blur as they shake their leaves like pom poms. Balmy August air drifting through my car, tangling itself in my hair, melting into my skin, taking root in my bones. My brother and I will scream the words to a homesick song as we coast along that old mountain road, letting the moment wrap itself around us tight.

If I’m lucky enough, I’ll write words that reach people, and sometimes, those people just might reach back. I will bring adventure to the pages. Honesty. I’ll toss ideas into the air and watch them fly.  

I will spend my days with people who remind me of Rome, and the ones that remind me of home. Time will move like molasses, slow but sure, allowing space to create moments so tender and dear. Kisses from the sun will leave behind stars on my cheeks, ridges in my skin as a roadmap I’ll one day show someone. I’ll squeeze my parents’ fragile hands, the hourglass of life reminding me that time is a dance. That life is. 

I will be told “No.” 

“Maybe.” 

“Someday.” 

“Not yet.” 

“Not enough.”

If I’m lucky enough, I’ll leap before looking. Skin my knees, crack my heart. I will find the things, the people, that set my heart on fire and I will burn for them. I will see things end and I will see them begin, and I will understand the importance, the inevitability, of each. 

I will be told “Yes.”

“Okay.” 

“Of course.”

“Let’s do it.”

If I’m lucky enough, I will have twenty-two beautiful years alongside my brother, our memories together cherished like little miracles. We’ll stand with our heads out the sunroof, build pillow forts under the yellow beam of a flashlight, walk to school side by side, tiptoe up the stairs after midnight movies, give “I’ll miss you” hugs by the front door. Moments of nothing, moments of everything. 

After all, sometimes we just get lucky.