July 5, 2025

fingernails shone like small precious jewels

wrapped carefully in spiraled skin as beautiful as was fleeting

still capturing me both in wake and sleep

flesh not mine and gladly

I am marked by your masterpiece that was your existence

I still speak the language

still bask in simplicity and stare at my thumbs

March 5, 2025

I was searching for something I never had before: assurance. Assurance in who I was and where I came from. When crying on the floor or on the train or in the bathroom stall, I pictured my grandmothers’ face, long beautiful fingers smudged with charcoal. And the Andes mints on top of the fridge that I wish I could still gorge myself with. And the comforting lull of Catholic mass on in the other room while we played blackjack on the kitchen floor. And the smell of detergent and tortillas and mud and my childhood. I could go on and on, and I do.

I want to bury something,

Slippery, carnal, sublime something,

I guess I’d rather you not visit me anymore.

Inside jokes, sobbing, laughing, more sobbing, sunburns, sharing clothes, school crushes, passing notes, braiding hair, passing tampons between bathroom stalls (lots of passing things apparently), birthday parties, playing “mermaids”, sneaking out, awkward first kiss, awkward second kiss, swimming pools, football games, stomachaches, trampolines, hot summers, vodka strawberries, creek stomping, soccer practice, push up bras, binge drinking, kissing on the cheek, kissing on the mouth, long phone calls, break up texts, twin bed, CD players, squeezing in the back seat, holding hands, “I love you” goodbyes…

girlhood is both a time in one’s life and a state of being.