My body still looks seventeen and my hands could be in their forties. I'm my mother’s age when she had me. I am my mother when I let a story go on too long or when I laugh even though I’m not supposed to. When I drink too much wine my southern accent comes back. One time a stranger in passing told me that I wear my heart on my sleeve. I turned to my boyfriend and told him it wasn’t true.
My shadow is a child and everywhere I go she’s behind me, with each step she’s carefully placing her foot on the hot pavement where mine was last.
I used to have a recurring dream where my dad walks to the end of a pier and drops me into the water. I’m only a baby in his arms wrapped in a white cotton blanket, wearing a hat of the same cloth. He wears a fur lined faded denim jacket. I’m jolted awake as soon as my skin touches the cold ocean water and the white blanket clings to my skin. When I wake up I know it was only a dream but the feeling of falling stays with me for just a little while longer. I look up and there’s a gwen stefani poster hanging above my bed.
One time a little brown kitten came through my open window. And then a few weeks later a crow on my fire-escape. He stayed for hours and we shared a comfortable silence. That’s when I became obsessed with crows. For a long time I fantasized about having my very own. Then, a few months later the brown kitten came back. That’s when I knew I liked having guests over.