Seventeen girls are lined up on a sidewalk;
Each one a year older than the one beside her.

Hello, One.
All things pure and graceful.
A perfect accident that would put a nebula to shame.
You aren't anything, yet you are so loved.

How do you do, five?
A cluster of merriment and wonder.
I'm sure you're well.
Tell the fairies I still love them.

Hi, Fourteen.
You're nailed in a blizzard,
And I'm sorry.
Lighting yourself on fire will not prevent you from dying.
You will make it.

Good evening, sixteen.
You are kind and harsh; everything you should be.
You're the girl every child is scared to become.

Hello, seventeen.
You're here, you're alive;
And that's all you need to be.
You've been cut, killed, milked and fed to dogs.
Yet you're still here.

But on the opposite side of the pavement, I see more.
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
I can see for miles.

I've only been able to read about the past.
I can mail old friends,
re-watch films.

But for the first time in my existence,
I can see a future.

I see girls learning, loving and growing in ways that I can't yet understand.

That's why I thank you;
All of you.
One through seventeen.
You have nearly killed me,
But I owe everything to you.