You are not me.
I was once you, but thank god that's over.
What would I do, if I was still you, as the world gets older and older?
Left behind, I guess.
Stranded in sand on dry land
While everyone else is chatting about how great the water feels.
From my present view, I can still see you.
If I squint and hold my head a little like this.
But from your spot, not too far in the past, you're just far enough that you can't see me at all.
Even if you squint and tilt your head like me.
Since you can't see what you'll become, I'll provide a description of myself to you.
Though you probably won't believe me.
Because how could self conscious, shy pessimistic you ever become such a confident, extroverted and blooming optimist as me?
You probably think I'm joking.
I would know, I once had your mind.
But my mind now is a lot different from yours,
It's a bit more rounded; refined
But still rough around the edges.
I've got more growing to do
I always will
I hope the day I die, I still learn something new
Today I learned a surprising truth
that really, I shouldn't be so embarrassed of you.
Even though every item of clothing you own is neon of some kind and every time you try to speak your mind, you stutter.
And you're alright if no one hears you because you wouldn't want to listen to you either.
And your habit of self-depreciation is thoroughly and incorrectly ignored to the point where you're drowning in it.
And your chin doesn't ever go above your shoulders
And your personality is buried under a million layers of 'fit-in' in that same muted grey shade everyone else is painting themselves in lately.
I may not be you and you may not be me.
But a piece of you I'll certainly carry indefinitely.
And if I lost it, God forbid, nothing would stop me from being you again.
Not that there's anything wrong with the bangs you cut yourself and the crookedness of your pre-braces teeth.
Or how you snort when you laugh.
There's nothing wrong with the rainbow of marker stains that always decorate your knuckles.
Or the flute in your locker or the flower barrettes in your hair.
There's nothing wrong with being eleven and wishing you were sixteen tomorrow.
I'm glad time travel doesn't exist.
It'd be too tempting to skip the ridicule and loneliness you endured for simply being quiet and kind.
But if you hadn't happened than neither would I.
But time travel doesn't exist and so therefor you do.
And if I forgot you,
and the skin that I've already lived in
tell me, you that I've already been
How could I ever grow into something new
that would be any different from you.
