My son will never know the me I was
before I became myself.
He'll never know the girl
who sat on fire escapes at three am,
in some city somewhere,
smoking cigarettes and writing love poems.
He'll never know the tiny apartment
where she discovered
that she could never really be as broke and glamorous as Audrey had been,
because she didn't make enough money,
and there was no handsome stranger that would eventually take care of her
after ninety-five minutes' time.
And instead of throwing fabulous parties,
she preferred sitting on the floor,
drinking cheap wine from the bottle
in front of old movies.

For years I dreamt of a life like that.
Where I was my own and belonged to no one.
Where life was lonely
in a tragic but beautiful sort of way.
That was the woman
I believed
I was destined to be.

And I was lucky
For not many people make it
to who they've always dreamt of being.
Not many people escape the monotony of real life.
I did.
I got out.

And parts of me were glamorous.
The nights I met strangers
and danced on city streets,
drunk and in love with the world,
wearing tight dresses,
heels in hand,
hair blowing in the summers breeze.
She,
was glamorous.
Walking down streets
singing anthems to our youth and independence,
we were glamorous,
me and all those nameless friends.
We were young and unattached.
We roamed the world,
and it belonged solely to us.

But friends,
life gets lonely.
And when the glamour fades,
you are who you are.

I loved those nights.
Every one of the passionate,
exciting,
artistic,
lonely nights.
And if my life had gone a different way,
I would still be that girl,
in that tiny apartment,
twenty years from now,
longing to escape that life as well.

You see,
my life has been wonderful.
And I have been the luckiest girl to walk the earth.
Because I never got stuck.
Some people just get lost,
in all of that never belonging to anyone,
never belonging anywhere nonsense.
But I didn't.
Now, I
belong to my son.

And he will never know who I was before him.
Nor will I tell him.
Because those memories,
and those secrets,
those are mine.
Mine,
to drift off into remembrance from time to time,
smiling secretly
about how I was one of the luckiest women alive
back then.
And luckier still that when I come back,
my son's smile is there to greet me,
and remind me that my life
my life, is exactly where it should be.

My son is an old soul,
filled with old thoughts.
I can feel it in his breath as he sleeps,
and his eyes while he studies the world,
ever so serious,
ever so conserved,
and ever so beautiful in his silent observations
of me and the world he is meeting
for the first time.
And one day
he will be the man who walks city streets,
changing the world,
saving the existence of man.

This,
I know,
because he saved me.
He saved me when I was so "glamorously unaware"
that I needed saving.

So while I have moments
where I mourn who I was -
the starving artist intent on creating tragically beautiful art -
I remind myself
every moment,
that my son,
my son IS art.
And who he is
will forever
be my greatest poem.

I live, in honor of him.