i want long hair and a baby.
i wear soft jumpers and let the rain fall on my face, sometimes.
i worry about being alone.
i laugh with my friends until my stomach aches.
i watch life fly by past my window.

being twenty-something means seeing yourself through fractured glass fragments of mirror:
i am 18, frail. young to the world.
i am 19, confident. unafraid.
i am 20, learning. becoming
21.

i keep each piece in a pocket of my mind,
a patchwork of a girl
with untied knots at each corner.

i often wonder how i am seen by others.
it frightens me to imagine only those thin shards of light that permeate from me
on a first glance.

but i have been 18, 19, 20,
and i have lived and cried and loved.
between my cracks and crevices emerges
a smile with wonky teeth, thick eyebrows, the birth mark on the nape of my neck.
footprints on my face of a girl who was, who is.

so i'll grow my hair.
i'll fall in love.
i'll carry a little heart in my tummy like a plum stone.

a kaleidascope perpetual
of ways i have been and ways that i am.
and i live to hope that
through kind eyes
and a soft voice
and a gentle heart
i will be seen for all that has made me,
and i will make someone as beautiful as all i have seen.