Of all I was.
– Aditi Mish
People often ask me
wouldn’t you like to be a child again?
To be five, or seven or ten
or maybe even an infant?
and me? Well I never know what to say
so I smile
And they must think in agreement
Because they never notice the bitterness.
When I think about seven year old me
It hurts. I think-
What does she know of life?
What does she know of how brutal and violent and chaotic and captivating it is?
No, she does not know.
She does not know that she is beautiful,
that what everyone tells her every day
about her skin and her teeth and her glasses it is wrong, wrong, wrong.
She does not know
that she is not stupid or incapable
intelligence is not measured by
or through numbers.
she does not know
that her fantasies came true
She was right.
When she is older she will cut her hair
and people will laugh with her, not at her
and her best friend will be prettier than spring she will have friends– good ones
who smile when she smiles.
but neither does she know
that right now her brother is ten
but one day he will be eighteen and he will be gone and she will wave goodbye, smiling through a torn heart because she does not want him to cry.
Neither does she know
it is easy to fall in love
but oh so difficult to fall out of it.
Neither does she know
she will spiral down, down, down
locking her past in some untended corner of her heart and throwing away the key.
Time to time, something will be extracted bitterly examined
and thrust back again.
she does not know
that as she gets louder on the outside a void will consume her
until there is nothing left
but an empty, smiling face.
Then again
perhaps even I do not know
someday the vacuum might be filled
I might be whole again.
But for now she is seven
and she is alright.
And her brother wants to show her a new game and her mother made pizza for dinner and her father is smiling down at her so
I will let her be.
I like this!