Unfold

When you were young – the killers.
Love it right now. Not sure why. Love the way it feels in my veins and my heart and the sunshine splattering on the pavement.
My hands are ice cold and tomorrow I’ll be seventeen and I don’t feel different or special. I feel like me.
It’s funny how we get another year older, and we feel like we should be totally different and better and cooler and special. In reality, the change happens when you least expect it… like a day lily sprouting between cracks in the sidewalk. My changes sprouted over the summer and into the bleak winter that has finally departed. Suddenly my soul was corroded and spaces were filled and others were emptied and my blood ran purple instead of indigo and my face flushed and paled.
I feel beautiful and I AM beautiful even though my body is dejected and my mind is sluggish and I have sleepy eyes and a voice roughened by a sore throat. My hair’s a mess and my clothes are old and comfortable and I have scars, a zillion spiderwebs, on my arms. My stomach doesn’t like food and I crinkle my nose at the school and everything tastes like cardboard. The corners of my lips are chapped and my nails are jagged and prom’s on saturday and I’m not giddy at all. I just exist. And I like it.
I want to take a warm walk in May sunshine and June rain and splash my way through dirty puddles and naked dreams. Silent screams died on my lips four years ago–has it really been four years?–and I am morphing, ever changing, splendid in every way. Obsessions die, creativity flourishes, writing is simple and untroubled. The pain of watching him love beyond and after me is like sugar in a gas tank but my tires screech anyway in my hurry to run. Run run run run. I miss it. I miss the burning chest and the painful lungs and the frosty air shattering on my skin. I am tingling but I don’t want anything expect what I already have.
My birthday card was beautiful and my hair straightener smells like new plastic. I wear a backwards baseball hat and cowboy boots, strutting my shit. Brandon was air guitaring and May was exploding in the form of sweet breezes and I was laughing, laughing, smiling. Gravel split under my tires and my knees ached but I could’ve driven forever. I want to run run run and drive drive drive…I want to get away, not to escape, but to experience. And I can’t wait. I can’t wait for the rest of my life to unfold.
Because I am everything that I’ve ever wanted,
Amanda