it’s when i turn eighteen that i am gifted my first adult-adult watch. i wear it more often than i bargained i would. my wrist has begun to grow accustomed to it and i reach for it even when i don’t wear it. keeper of time, give me back my childhood.
i teeter on the edge of adulthood, pondering everything i might lose. i remember being asked when i was very young what i would be when i am older. good, i used to think, i would like to be good. that hasn’t changed about me.
long live the mountains we moved. long live the odds we beat. i’m still questioning if i may go back to a time before them all.
sometimes growing up feels like watching peter pan die. sometimes it’s more like a sting when i remember he’s just hiding in the slip of my dress.
it was socially acceptable when i was 15 to walk around with paragraphs on my hands and forearms. i crave pens. i crave ink. i turned 18 and became inked permanently but it’s not enough.
put my poems in my blood. write my words on my retinas i think all the time about who i am. who i could be.
i bought my first red lipstick at 17. wore it looking like a fool. i’m 18 now and get complimented on finding a red that suits me. 15 thought of red lipstick like a prayer. 16 wanted nothing less.
18 and i ask my mother to drape my sari, hands shaking as a i push a bindi between my eyebrows, red circle like a bullethole; adulthood the bullet.
jhumkas in my ears and churis around my wrists. the weight of my culture - the weight of my past.
i am every child who prayed for their parents divorce. every girl who wondered when her father might finally go. every child grateful to leave. every child grateful to be left.
i hold them in my hands like hope. i hold every child i wish i could save. i pray. i hope it reaches them.
i didn’t wear a watch today. red nails, red hair but i didn’t wear a watch. red lips but i didn’t wear a watch.
i miss my ghagras. don’t you? my sister’s until she was 10, mine until i was 16. she was always a lot taller than me. i stay small, i stay young.
i make a joke about not drinking tonight and someone’s father laughs and says i shouldn’t break the law anyway. i don’t correct him, i let him think i’m not 18. if people see me as a child, perhaps childhood is not gone completely.
i can see my breath in the air. fireworks but i just see colour. fireworks but i’m just losing my breath. contemplating where i am. who i am.
i can feel the makeup on my face. i can - i can just feel.
i can feel.
i’ve waited so long. all i’ve ever asked is to feel. i mess up i am guilty and tired and not tall enough. i do badly at school sometimes and people don’t laugh at my jokes. i’m vulnerable i’m stupid i’m naive but god i feel.
i sit in front of windows and watch the sky as if a messiah is descending imminently. i look at everyone with love. i turn away from my reflection. i spend hours missing my friends.
i feel and i can’t feel without writing. writing as a narcotic as a drug i can’t get enough i stop. i’m only here for this. surely.
i am old yet young enough to keep all of my old passport photos. keep them close to my heart - close enough that i might keep them forever. close enough that i might never have to let go. close enough that growing up doesn't have to mean letting go.
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