First published in Divot: A Journal of Poetry
It gets heavy, carrying around the people I used to be.
They’re so small, so naive, so sad and angry and hurt
And I want to bubble wrap them all.
I want to tell them you’re safe now
I want someone to tell me you’re safe now.
It is exhausting, knowing the people I used to be
Trying to explain all of them to others.
‘I’m bolder than the person you met at our first jobs’
‘I’m more jaded than the girl you knew in high school’
I’m not her anymore, and I don’t want to be.
It feels disorienting, growing around all the people I used to be.
As a tree grows around the tree it once was.
I’m a twenty-six year old woman carrying
a ten and a six and a four year old inside me.
And the noise of the vacuum cleaner still scares them.
