the little girl that love never chose

the little girl that i once was bitterly resides in the hollow of my chest and claws reminders against my rib cage of every fear i've ever tried to outrun.

i feel her fury in the way my hands leave claw marks in everyone i've ever let go of. i feel her desperation whenever i can't seem to love without it consuming me whole. she is tangled in every breath i take, and every sob that wracks my body when it's the dead of the night and there's no one else to save me from my own appalling self-consciousness. 

i am every age that i have ever been, and as time passes, all i seem to do is remember. when i stand before a mirror it is her eyes that gaze back—full of a grief so interminable it threatens to swallow me whole. 

she is livid that i have dared to pretend i am anyone but her. she tells me to bite my tongue, take up less space, because i will always be too much for the world to hold. too loud in my sorrow, too earnest in my longing, too soft in a world that only rewards sharpness.

she reminds me that no matter how many new versions of myself i grow into, time will never stretch wide enough to sever us. 

and that i'll always remain an extension of her - the little girl that love never chose.