The Inevitable

The woman staring back at me in the mirror isn’t me.

My brain doesn’t match my body.

I trace the smile lines on her face

In another timeline, I am still a kid playing house at my best friend’s place.

The bathroom light accentuates the few grey hairs on my head.

In reality, I am just a kid who refuses to go to bed.

How can I have lost so much of me, at just twenty-three?

I am late for work.

At this age, we don’t climb trees.

I can’t remember how many of my knee scrapes bled.

For the sake of my sanity, this childhood is better left for dead.