At 12:01,
I become thirty-one.
No fireworks.
No choir of angels.
Just me—
still breathing.
Which feels miraculous enough.
I have survived years
that tried to make a grave
out of my own ribs.
Loved men
who mistook tenderness
for something they could bruise.
Lost people
I still speak to
when the moon is particularly cruel.
Held babies against my chest
and learned
there are kinds of fear
that only motherhood names.
I have crawled
through seasons
I was certain would bury me.
And somehow,
here I am.
Thirty-one.
Not untouched.
Not healed cleanly.
Not transformed
into some soft, glowing thing
who forgives everything.
Fuck that.
I came here scarred.
With dirt beneath my nails.
With smoke in my lungs.
With poems stuffed
into every crack
the world left in me.
I came here angry.
Tender.
Tired.
Still capable of loving
with both hands.
Thirty-one is not
a fresh beginning.
I don’t want one.
I want the whole ugly history
stitched into the hem
of everything I become.
Let it follow me.
Let it prove
how far I’ve walked.
Tonight,
I do not wish
to become someone new.
I only wish
to keep becoming
more completely
myself.
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