waking up early to catch the sunrise

runnning home because it's no longer on fire

The end of the month is creeping up, I can hear May’s whispers, her soft voice raising the peach fuzz on my neck, sending a shiver down my curved spine, my back aching with the heaviness of this year’s winter.

Last night I stood in front of the mirror, my eyes bloodshot from allergies, my face flushed from the cold wind outside. I leaned over my sink, trying to get as close to my reflection as possible, touching the hollows of my cheeks so gently I almost mistook myself for a lover. `

I don’t know what I was looking for — the pieces of myself I buried in the snow? I’m starting to look older. Swiping through old photos of myself from high school: cheeks full of baby fat, a nose that didn’t yet fit on my face, eyes that were a fraction too large. The photos made me realise the girl who looked back at me in the mirror last night wasn’t really a girl at all anymore but a woman. My cheeks have lost their baby fat, my nose doesn’t seem so out of place anymore, my eyes are still too big but I think it suits me now.

I’m getting further and further away from that young girl. The further I walk the harder she tightens her grip, begging for attention. I don’t know how to tell her she’s not being left behind, that really I’m her and she’s me.

Will I ever recognise myself in the mirror? Há muito pessoas diferentes em uma pessoa, não é? Will I always feel like a stranger? Como sei quem ser?

This morning I woke up to watch the sunrise from my balcony. The morning dawn brought in last night’s wind chill so I sat wrapped in sweatpants, thick socks, and a blanket. For many years the only time I would catch the sunrise was if I hadn’t gone to bed yet — now I seek it out, waking up early to catch a glimpse of it before starting my day.

I like to think she remembers how we used to meet, that she’s proud to see me again after a full night’s sleep instead of slumped over on the night bus, a ring of dark circles around puffy eyes.

When I was a young girl all I wanted was attention. Now I spend more time than I care to admit wishing to go unseen, wishing for the ability to disappear for a few days. So, in the early mornings, before the rest of the world wakes up, I take the time to myself — I get to be invisible, even just for an hour. In these moments, I’m not yet heavy with the rest of my life, there’s nothing I’m sad about, I’m still 13 and can fit under the cupboard, I haven’t hurt anyone and no one has hurt me. A small slice of life reserved just for me, um pouco momento no one can take from me.

Waking up early felt unnatural at first, getting to witness life breathe into a new day. I would wake up before my alarm and instantly feel that I was trying to be someone I wasn’t. After so many years of proclaiming myself as a night owl, waking up well into the afternoon most days, it took a while to settle into the silence of the early mornings.

Now, I wake up with the sun, I read and write and make a smoothie, taking in as much sun as possible before I start to work. Then I work, go to the gym, if I’m lucky see my friends afterwards, go home, sleep, repeat. It’s calm. It’s slow. There’s no war to prepare for. Suddenly nothing was on fire, and at first, that terrified me — I only knew how to survive while engulfed, I only ever felt at home if that home was burning. How do you survive calmness when it feels so foreign? Where do you go when you don’t have to run anymore?

change of state

mercy never walks into the room fully clothed:
black lace hangs off her shoulder,
teasing me in a way only she knows how,
beaconing us to the dancefloor,
our rhythm so familiar i don’t
miss a step or a beat or a pause.

we go in circles, as we do,
avoiding every mirror that decorates the walls
because i cannot look at our reflection,
for i know staring back at me
would be just one girl, twirling herself in circles
until she gets so dizzy she pukes,
asking herself the same questions, over and over again:

how do you allow yourself mercy when you feel so handcuffed to pain?
how can you admit it’s become a sick addiction,
all this suffering and longing and yearning?
how do you change the rhythm of the dance
when the movements feel so comfortable?

It’s strange, to walk around still feeling like that teenage girl, but those photos reminded me of how many years have passed since I was her. A decade older and sometimes I wonder how much wiser.

My god, sometimes I wish I was still that soft, that my cheeks were still full of fat and purpose and potential, my skin not yet scarred.

I spent most of my girlhood swallowing my desires, trying my best to fit inside predisposed definitions brought on by others. I tried to morph myself into a person others would like, not caring if I liked myself. I was catering to an audience that only ever saw me as something to claim, to own, to possess. My body was never really mine, I was always willing to abandon myself for affection.

Now, I enter womanhood alone, walking hand in hand with my younger self, telling her that the scars which decorate our skin prove we’ve loved, we’ve been loved, we’ve hurt, we’ve been hurt, we’ve lost and won and come back from the dead many times over. I tell her these scars are reminders of how far we have come. It may take some time but she’ll learn to love them the same way I have.

I walk into womanhood welcoming all my desires, promising them they have a place here, they don’t need to hide. I’m no longer performing for an audience. It feels good to finally jump off that stage, to sit alone in the crowd without worry that I’ll be called out for being a fraud; I find happiness in no longer caring what others think of me.

Maybe that’s what I didn’t recognise in the mirror last night. I’d never seen it before in my eyes, that kind of determination, that confidence.

Who I saw looking back at me was someone who didn’t swallow her desires to avoid disappointing others, who didn’t care about fitting into the definitions or roles that others expected of her, who wasn’t afraid of how loud her love was. I only caught a glimpse of her last night, but that was all I needed. I just needed to know she was in there. I have been searching for her for so long.

The sun hangs brightly in the sky and this spring I’m finally coming home.