Kinsey Peterson

Eighteen

I\'ve always loved pretty things. 

Maybe that\'s why I never cared for the mirror- but that is beside the point.

I loved pink when I was younger, a colour so soft and yet so bold.

Purple is my favourite now. 

It doesn\'t look as meek.

I painted daffodils where now my sketchbooks are filled with eyes.

I used to hold up my sparkling fingers to tell people that I am four years old.

Nine times out of then I was holding up three fingers.

I can\'t hold up the number eighteen on my hands.

I\'m off track again, damn it.

I like pretty things; sunsets, rainbows, rings, rocks that sparkle in the light.

Somehow those pretty things filled a part of me that was empty.

They gave colour to my world.

Now, at eighteen- everything looks gray.

My poems aren\'t about kittens and bunnies anymore.

I\'m terrified of my future.

I want to be four again.

I don\'t want to see that the sunsets are all the same shades of pink.

I don\'t want to realize that daffodils are pale in colour.

I don\'t want to be eighteen. 

The world used to look so pretty.

Why doesn\'t it look pretty anymore?