I awoke one morning, in the same spot as before. My bones creaked with the pain of staying in the same position, on your shelf with a broken doll and snow globe from last year’s ski trip, waiting, to be remembered.

When you were just a small child I would be on your mind, a game we would play with bare feet and fairy wings, you would close your eyes and say, “When I grow up I want to be… a Unicorn!”

What about our games of hide and seek? I would hide and you could seek, but I’m starting to think we’ve been playing the same round for years, but you quit and never told me.

You started grade school, worked hard and had friends. You were brilliant, a genius inside a tiny girl, you took the hardest math and didn’t care about being a nerd. You’d run with the boys and make them look slow, saying “When I grow up I want to be… a

As the years passed by we talked less and less, the heaviness of life starting to weigh down, I watched life knock the innocence out of your eyes, and push you to the ground, I screamed for you, please, just think about me, just remember, but you never seemed to stop. As the pain melted away and left you alone, bare, exposed, you walked away, still, saying “When I grow up I want to be… Happy.”