Oh To Be 7 Again

By Ria Minhas

  I haven't eaten tomato slices with salt and pepper in years

7-year-old me would be appalled.

Her favorite snack, forgotten.

What else would shock her?

Under the hair dye and boys and clothes and kisses,

How much of her is still left?

The candles on her birthday cake burned out long ago,

but I still look for flickering flames to blow out.

I water the plants outside and cold droplets hit my feet.

I can hear children playing outside next door,

the cool summer night breeze carries their laughter,

and I wonder if their candles are still burning.

Rainbow wax dripping onto smooth frosted white cakes, futures vast and wide ahead of them. 

I wonder if they notice the little things, like how you can’t see the moon from the backyard.

I always did.

I go back inside to eat what I forgot.

7-year-old me doesn’t wipe her feet upon entering.

The salt and pepper sting my lips,

tomato juice runs down my hand.

7-year-old me begins to lick it off,

but 20-year-old me wipes the rest off her fingers.

My phone is dead.

My decade-old 3DS is still full battery.

Maybe that’s how it’s meant to be.

7-year-old me is afraid of the bug near the patio light,

so 20-year-old me ignores it and shuts the screen door.

Outside my bedroom window I find the moon is bright and full and alone tonight.

The same moon that followed 7-year-old me on the car rides home.

I wonder if exactly 13 years ago today she was looking up too.

I hope she saw the moon like I did tonight

I hope she looked at it and threw every last hope and dream she had up there

With her sticky, tomato juice-stained, nail-bitten hands.

I hope every birthday wish blown out

Was lifted by the candle smoke into the sky.

I hope the moon caught them and held them tight.

I hope the moon still has them,

stored away safely in a crater of my own until I can collect them again

With bigger, cleaner, gentler hands.