Eighteen

I do not understand seconds or days or years.

Do I revolve around my soul like the earth around the sun? Does the planet age as I do: slowly, unnoticeably, and then all at once? Like an earthquake splitting my bones apart to grow; leaving new bruises on my eyes, new lines on my skin that I was never old enough to acknowledge until this day when the clock flicks over and maturity miraculously worms its way inside. Suddenly, the scars are real, the hurt is real, and the scratch at the base of my throat is not a scream to be saved but a scream to be recognized for beauty and grace and subtlety.

When you're 18, it is not that you can smoke or vote or wield a gun for however noble a cause. It is being able to actually look at yourself in the mirror and be ashamed proud of the length of each finger, the occupation in each lung, the strength in each bitten-bloody lip that trembles, yes. You can feel the cold rush of air. The numbing of each kneecup. Dinner warm and weighty in your stomach. You breathe, watch the swell of each blemish of flesh, the way the years wire you vertical, expansive as a horizon.

When did woman become your pronoun,  alive your objective(?)