Dear girl with the sharpies and sewing needles

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

You’ve grown up a bit, haven’t you?

Since the last time I saw you finish something you started

You’ve stopped reading your horoscope on that website a long time ago

The one you used to read for the sake of proving wrong

Because you never really were very superstitious

And you always found the idea of everyone born at the same time acting the same hilarious

But I could tell you used it as a motivation

Because it always said Scorpios were people of commitment

And people of unmatchable passion

So you wanted to match that to commit to your choice of hobbies

And to always work on your drawings and plush toys until they were deemed satisfying

But you’ve been slowing down and paying less attention to detail

 

Dear girl with the novels and storybooks

You haven’t been reading much lately

Although you keep up with that habit you have

Of buying more books before you even finish the ones you already own

But the stacks of unread plots are getting bigger

With the stacks of subtle lines under those eyes that I used to love

Now the only characters you grow attached to are your own

The ones you say have bits and pieces of yourself in them

Though you only ever claim the flaws they have

Rather than the good qualities that really make them reflections

On the fragile glass surface that holds the makeup of your personality

 

Dear girl with the rings and bracelets

Your hands are always moving

They have been since you were a small child

Holding pink and blue crayons in your tiny fists

To make scribbles and lines that you called unicorns

Because they could be anything you wanted them to be

But nowadays the restless body parts that you used to use to make creations

Are shackled to themselves in handcuffs made of string, elastic, and leather

So you can lock your hands away for breaking and entering

Into the room where you keep the ideas that you’re too afraid of letting out

Your fingers are held down and entertained by the rings that you adore

And you love when they get compliments

But when the fruits of your efforts are pointed out as sweet

You pluck them off the tree and let them rot in the fridge

So you can offer the store-bought apples instead

So when the fruit has a flaw, it won’t be something you had made yourself

 

Dear girl with the downward gaze and hesitant voice

What happened?

Confidence transformed into low self-esteem and an unwillingness to move

A fear of change

A phobia of anybody really listening to the words you still speak in spite of your own anxieties

And you hope your messages get lost in translation

Despite how desperately you want for somebody to understand you

Despite how much you want to turn back time to before you turned thirteen

When you could stand up to your full height that everybody made fun of for being below theirs

But you would brush off their comments

As you ran your words effortlessly

Over the tongue you never held and through the mouth you quickly learned

Could be used for something other than eating food and chewing out other people

Now the only times you truly speak to strangers are when you’ve scripted yourself

Not only when you’re on stage with your poetry

But before you ask a question in class, or when you’re ordering food, or asking for help

You prepare every syllable
But your heart still thumps a tad too loud for ten minutes after you’ve spoken

Why is that?

 

Dear girl with the brown eyes and nervous smile

You seem to have forgotten me

You’re so wrapped up in the world around you

You’ve tied your attention to only the things you find wrong with yourself

And the things you find perfect in your friends

You have left behind the only person that’s always wrapped around your lungs

And making sure you’re still breathing and your mind’s still moving

The one who shares your thoughts and words

The one who shares memories with you

And knows exactly what’s in that precious box of yours that you seem to be opening less and less

When you really should be looking at it more

You seem to have forgotten the one that can’t ever leave

You seem to have forgotten me

 

Dear girl with the silly little drawings and poems

The sharpies, sewing needles, novels, and story books

The rings, bracelets, downward gaze, and hesitant voice

Keep those brown eyes shining

And don’t ever stop smiling