by Meria Paidu

Created on: April 16, 2008

I have many ages.

I am twelve years old on days when my father calls. My voice changes and my thoughts turn to being mindful of what he thinks. Of what he wants me to think.

Sometimes, I remember this isn't the real me and I rebel. On those days, I am sixteen.

I'm fifteen when I run away from home. My uncle came to pick me up the one time it was real and even then I was only a block or so away. I tell no one when I do it now; it makes me feel older.

I strive to be in my forties when I talk to my mother, because one of us has to be. She's the child sometimes and then, sometimes not. I take her place and she takes mine and then we argue because ours is a strange relationship and I judge her unfairly all the time. Maybe that makes me a younger sibling rather than an older daughter.

All my friends are older. This makes me feel a disadvantage that I can't get over, no matter how much I try. I know my voice says as much.

Some of my friends are younger, but not by much. I want to feel protective towards them, but I end up resenting them for no reason and then I wonder if that doesn't have something to do with my own issues. They're content to be the age they are. They don't feel the need to be different, at least not in that respect.

I have always been fourteen in my own eyes. My body has changed, matured, but I feel more like a child than ever. I wear make-up and style my hair and show off my cleavage, but it's not me. It's another age I try to offer myself as present.

Sometimes I think I'll end up seventy-five and alone and wishing to be younger. I think that's not so sad; at least I won't be trying to be older.

Sometimes I wish I could catch up to my friends, to my mother, to say 'I'm here, I'm just as smart, just as experienced. I've *lived* just as much.' But I don't, because it would be a lie.

I'm always in a rush to reach the finishing line and I know I've lost the race already.

I am perpetually seven years old, a baby in my arms, at the top of a metal slide in the park. We look down and I drop her. I think I'll always be stuck there. I think I'll never move again.

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