have to ruin things at the end…

do you not see how this ruins me? do you not see how this leaves me speechless and incapable? do you not see the corner you’ve backed me into? do you not see how cold the concrete of the floor is? do you not see how my face is pressed into the brick? do you not see how my arms are frayed and my tongue has turned to ash? do you not see how, each time you say this, i believe you? do you not see how each time you say this, i think of escape? do you not see, how each time you say this, i think to myself, he would’ve been better off if i was dead?

At your age, the nights were long and rash and jumbled, there were winters that were bitter and cold, quick and blindingly white. Summers that were sticky and sharp, airy and star filled. My friends were fleeting, mercurial, intense and complicated. I never knew where I stood with them and I was always a bit lost, looking for a lasting connection, a frequency I could never dial into.

At your age, I was locked in, tuned out, above it all but burdened. I was introspective and judgmental, angered but not yet enraged. I was past trying to impress anyone, but I knew I had a long way to go. I didn’t want to escape, I didn’t want to fit in, I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. I was embarrassed by what I was and couldn’t figure out who I could be.

At your age, I had nothing figured out but thought I knew it all.

And I look you at your age and I can see the contours of what I was, I can see the thinking and the yearning and where the edges fit. I see the alignment and feel a measure of pride anticipation of what’s next. I see where you have surpassed me, how you have stretched the boundaries and leapt forward, unknown territory that I was never capable of, a strength that would come to me only much later.

I look at you at this age and I am giddy and afraid. You’ve set the bar so high that it makes me dizzy, and where I should be worried and afraid, I find myself saying, there’s even higher she can go.