Look at me now
My once curly hair stick-straight,
My once fresh eyes Kohl-laced

Wonder at my dexterity
My pinkish tender fingers have gotten disfigured
To longish, darker, and wiser ones; you’d hear my

High, shrill laughter, that doesn’t conform
To the graceful springy adornments that it had before

gaze at my iconoclastic room
That smells of adolescent hormones
Swelling with teenage rebellion and
Punk shades of red and black,
A radical departure from my late pink paints
And Barbie shades;

Feel my feelings now
That impalpable blood red ocean
Thoughts no longer wander around Santa or snow white or
Maidens fair, instead
Just hang around vainly, hovering in midair.

But don’t you gape; it’s still that naïve little
Girl you knew, with wide eyes and a mouth adorned with
Chocolate stains who blabbered incessantly
About all things only half-understood; only that now,
All the chocolate has been licked clean
And behind it every truth that hid harshly revealed.
If you can deal with the radical, then believe , it’s still
Me.