melted

who i am today

i remember who i once was. that girl, she feels so far away now. so desperate to love, so enamored with that which she could not obtain. that girl, she sounds a different voice from mine, a laugh all her own, distant, indecipherable. that girl, she was patched up with staples that punctured her balloon heart and tape her satin skin was never meant to adhere to.

i see myself now as a doll. a ragdoll, the same type that used to scare me as a young child, coughing up dust from the bookshelves in my grandmother's bedroom. she is not visibly fractured like the porcelain doll, too fancy, too highbrow, too condescendingly-perched-atop-the-shelf. too easily broken. her eyes may not shine as brightly as they once did, but they glow. buttons have a certain charm. her hair, yarn spun into chestnut-hued gold via affirmations, crafted by friendly wordsmiths with finer handiwork than rumplestiltskin himself. her hands have been remade by every pair that have touched hers, reworked into millions of different colors. she has been blended by many various minds to fit shades of their own desires. her heart, sewn together with the red threads of fate, dress patchworked with memories of each place, each person, each thing that has crossed her path. she has accepted her job: to love and to be loved.

this girl now, she has found comfort in the small things. the bedside smiles of her mother as she returns home, the warmth of the blanket her father brings up from the wash. the half of a bagel her friend tears off to share. the soft touch of a boy who runs his fingers through her hair as she sleeps in his arms. this girl now, she has crossed oceans in her own mind, she has climbed mountains and skied down hills and ziplined across canyons, and she has learned so much. this girl comes home changed, but retains what made her so great in the first place.

the difference is, now she sees it.