21 years 

21 years old today.

I only get older and learn more things.

My womanhood has become an incorrigible fact, and life prior to these changes only becomes more cloudy. I remember the seasons in which two vulgar mounds of flesh first emerged from my chest, my skin became oily and ripe with pustules, dark wiry hairs sprouted in places I had never imagined, and my innards poured in red streams. These once horrific novelties are now parts of me, no longer to be experienced for the first time.

The tall child of that day, whose primary school trousers hugged her limbs all too tightly, unable to shake the monachopsis of this new form. My peers smelled of Robinson's, mummy's perfume and a child-like miasma that I probably shared but I was once likened to an adult by my teachers, I didn't like that. Instead I was detergent, benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, and the sour stench of pubescent body odour that affixed itself to the pale blue of my PE shirts. My sweat forming a creamy yellow plaster with my deodorant, and adorning the armpits of my clothes that I didn't remember to add to the weekly cycles I was now responsible for.

Now I enter my twenties wide eyed and forgiving, a lot more than I was to the child of that day. I no longer have my arms pinned to my sides, or my hands over my face, hiding the freshly popped nodules that once congregated between my eyebrows. I no longer reside in oversized clothing and widely accepted opinions. I am no longer trying to form part of a mass, despite it looking warm and inviting at the times I felt most alone.

12 March 2019

And again

 a couple times in 2023

And again

End of last year, kinda

moments so unfathomably bad, I'd be filled with an ache when confronted with them, so much so I'd submerge them deep into my mind, as if to pretend they never happened. Now I can tuck them neatly beside the good times, like tools in my evergrowing arsenal of experience, ready to be repurposed at times I shall never expect.

I feel whole on my own, but love the people around me nevertheless, I feel the scratchy whine of my voice returning, alongside the scrunch of my nose when I smile for real. I sit now under my duvet, lightly peppered in scars and clogged pores, the last remnants of the oily years, I don't mind them so much anymore. I can accept that not everything can or will be perfect, like this silly piece of ramble that I'm really writing as a long winded way of telling people it's my birthday. I can actually say and believe that I'm quite lovely, and excited for this new year of mine, that will be all about me and the people I love so much !