Grown

It isn’t me. The thing that stares through reflective waters at the sky that forms bounds against the height of trees. It isn’t real. The dark lines that form around its eyes, a memory of laughter painted on by age.

We are creatures made different by the wash of rain against our skin. One sees green trees, the other sees arid sunrises. It is not a flickering scent, it is etched, branded into us by time. A world in which wrinkles and long travels were just a thought.

I am not sagging skin and grey hairs, I am cartwheels on sidewalks, eyelashes and summer dresses. I am not rocking chairs and forgotten mothers. I am not her - the old woman in the water.

They say I fear you, age. They say I am running from you. They say I am no longer young - but look at these flowers, these blooming flowers. Every summer it is full and lively again. The age of winter has done no damage to how their colours blossom. I am not made for these walls, surrounded by sleepy feet, and heads shaking from the tremble of what once was.

I am not made for your rooms with beds shrunken to fit my shriveling body. Trees are bursting with leaves so green, they want me to come out and see them. Let me see the trees as they reach for the sun. Let me breathe in sunbeams until I bloom again. Don’t take this away from me. Don’t let me be what I am in the reflections.