it will be my birthday soon
i will be sixteen years old
what will i wish for when
i blow out my candles?

i might wish for someone with
outstretched hands
who can feel every wound full of
emotion
on my being
every ridge of trauma on my skin

someone who will not set to
change me like the
leaves in the autumn
how they shine with green and life
and then shrivel and die
unlike my mother would
unlike the woman that scolds me
for “changing”
when she is
the one who changed

or someone who will hold on
tight
and never let me go
unlike the ones who promised
to love every part of my soul
every bone in my body

who only loved me for my body
without the bones

someone who will love me
soft and kindly
gently
with somber words that do not
nick like a blade

someone who will show
the little girl in me
that it’s okay to feel
that it’s only human
the basic human function to feel

one who can comfort
the melancholic pang i feel
staring at the woman i see in the
mirror
comfort her and wipe
the tears that fall
like an unspoken wish to
be someone else