My six year old self
Believed in fairies
She would scavenge in our backyard
Ankles caked with mud
Digging for earthworms
And buried treasure
Not knowing the treasure that was staring her right in the face
My seven year old self
Liked to escape
Between the binding
Of a torn paperback
She dog-eared pages
With her tiny hands
And thought there was so much
She didn’t understand
When she understood life better
Than I do now.
My eight year old self
Was obsessed with magic
She cast spells with her words
Conjured love potions
From rhododendron leaves
And marigolds
And left them drowning in the rain
On the back porch
Until they stunk up the house
With their odor
My nine year old self
Refused to grow up
And refused to let go
Wished grandpa was immortal
And wished time would move
Slower
Started writing stories in empty notebooks
Next to her multiplication tables
That she would never learn
And wishing that
The boy next door might notice her
Was careful but carfree enough
To not care what others thought
My ten year old self started caring
Started worrying
Started trying a little too hard
Started writing poems
Instead of stories
Because stories were too long and poems were just long enough
For everything she needed to say
Just long enough for her to get everything she needed
Off her chest
My eleven year old self lost her breath
Wandering in the darkness
And trying to stand on both feet
Tried to write
But did more erasing than writing
Because nothing was ever good enough
My twelve year old self
Wouldn’t stop scrutinizing her reflection
Cut her hair short
So that it looked bearable
Was excited when school closed for two weeks
Was lonely
When it became over a year
Since she had seen her friends
Grew out her hair
And never cut the dead ends.
My thirteen year old self
Acted as though she didn’t miss her family
Began to self-isolate
Lost the books on her shelf
And watered her soul with paper and ink
Words staining the pages
Till finally she made a dent in them.
My fourteen year old self
Pretended that she was not bursting
With words to say
That her notebook was not
Overflowing with poetry
And her soul was not plastered with it
Continued to scrawl
In the margins of pages
And nestle her poems
Between her fingers
My fifteen year old self
Gave up wanting to fit in
She cut off her dead ends
And made some new friends
Instead of pretending
She was someone
She was not.
She pretended she was
someone she wanted be.
My sixteen year old self
Became someone.
She refused to quit
On her dreams
Refused to look weak
Refused to let herself cry
Like she did when she was six
And she fell and scraped her knees
My sixteen year old self
Tried to be perfect
Until she was too exhausted
To be that version of herself
Anymore.
My seventeen year old self:
She continues to learn
She continues to grow
Like an orchid trembling in the rain
Extending its shaking petals
To the sky
My seventeen-year old self
Will bloom.
Spilled Ink 