I came out with the desert sun
setting fire to the sky and my skin
Tucson peeled me open like citrus.
I was 28,
a suitcase, a ukulele,
and a hunger for something true.
Something that didn’t taste like sacrifice.
Something like sour Skittles.

Illinois clung to my boots like guilt,
but I left it behind
along with the secondhand names
and the silence that hummed at every family dinner.
They say they expected it.
But what does that even mean?
Was I a whispered prophecy,
a rumor passed between casserole dishes?

And yet.
I’m more alive now
than I ever was in my own childhood.
Back when Lunchables were treasure chests
and sour Skittles were holy communion,
a ritual:
**** the sugar off,
then bite down on what’s left.

That’s what transition feels like.
Strip the sweet lies,
feel the sting,
then chew through the core.

I used to be a lonely train
on a flat, frozen plain.
Now I’m a subway station at rush hour,
voices bouncing off tile,
ADHD blooming into a kind of brilliance
I never knew I owned.

There is no arrival point,
no final platform
just motion and growth,
just the ache of becoming,
just this bite of electric candy
melting on my tongue.

And I love her
the girl in the mirror.
Even as she’s still learning to hold herself,
sometimes forgetting
that she’s already whole.

But I remember,
when my mouth goes raw
from the citric burn,
that it’s okay to savor joy
after everything it took to earn it.

I was not born divine.
I was made.
And I am still making myself
with sugar and spit,
with lipstick and laughter,
with every sour Skittle
I **** between my lips
like a prayer with teeth,
I’ll give this life another bite.