I look at the photographs my mom keeps on the fridge,
a timeline of childhood, stacked in grade order-
my brother two years ahead, always slightly out of reach.
In those pictures, I search for the little girl I used to be,
she’s buried beneath the stretched smiles,
the practiced posture,
the brown eyes staring back at me with something missing.
The clear skin,
the natural hair I never learned to love.

I remember standing in front of the mirror,
staring into those brown eyes,
wishing for them to be prettier,
brighter-
some color that wasn’t so ordinary.
I wanted them to sparkle like the ones I admired,
all I saw were shadows.

I remember pulling at strands of my hair,
unsatisfied with the way they felt.
Too dark, too light,
never enough of one or the other.
I wished I could be different,
anything but what I was.

I pressed on my teeth before the braces came,
willing them to straighten,
to mold into something beautiful.
when the brackets arrived,
I ran my tongue over them,
flinching as the metal pinched,
as if it were the price of becoming someone new.
I thought that if I could fix the outside,
maybe the inside would follow.

I remember that little girl-
the one who whispered ugly into the mirror
before she could even reach over the counter,
before she knew what weight the word carried,
somehow already knew it applied to her.
She whispered it like a secret,
as if saying it enough times would make it true,
maybe then the world would match the way she felt.