looking in the mirror
i see myself
not as everything i am
but as everything that i have been
i see a little girl with wonder in her eyes
and fear in her heart
i see a preteen with a little too much love to give the world
that it spills from every crack in her innocence
and i see the steady beating of a heart of silver
forged from days spent in overdrive
and nights where love never lies to rest.
into dusk and beyond
the girl in the mirror blinks absently back at me
through a filter of struggle and hard work like sun rays on the ocean floor
where family is the deep ocean trench that i was raised in
not the warm waters of the coral reef that i know today
where diverse human nature flows in a way that i can tell one person from the next by reading their words on a piece of paper
where i bathe myself in the sun rays that form a halo around my head
and i am unable to escape the feeling of flying
everything i touch turns to pearl
love spills from
not the cracks in my innocence
but from the old wounds where i’ve allowed myself to heal, but not harden
some days
the waves wash over me, and i let them
others
the tide is in my hands
either way
the girl in the mirror
blinks absently back at me
because she didn’t know how to breathe underwater
but she will soon learn
i am counting on her