You're Just jealous cause we're young and in Love

"I'd like to stay eighteen forever," I thought as I lifted
through Seventeen magazine, then stared at the mirror
in horror,
realizing I was two years away from any sort of "teen"
status and beginning to count the wrinkles that say "young adult."

gah. Where did these lines come from?
The ones etching their fingers around the corners of my eyes
and the creases of my lips. The ones dipping into my forehead
and cresting my wrists.

Aren't I only sixteen?
Aren't I nineteen?
Twenty-one and I'm already sketched like a map?

I wore my sunscreen. I lathered the lotion. I drank the water.

Wrinkled at twenty-one and they're not age-lines
but story-lines, weaving their words in and out of my skin
like a needle through a fine piece of silk.
Sometimes it snags; sometimes it runs;
sometimes it pulls a threaded tear along behind it,
but still the needle slips its way across my face

and my friends can point and say, "Here. Here is where we laughed about the shoes
that were too small, or the wine in the hall."

And then others can squint and say, "Look, there.
Look where I brushed your arm and teased
your hair and we ran for miles but we were going no-where."

Still others will touch a line embedded
in prayers and whisper, "I knew you, when you broke
right there."

And the others will cry along with the lines
that drag away twinkles from world-weary eyes.

And the Listener waits to sketch new lines on my face.

"Okay," I say. "Paint away."