Untitled - Hannah Karim

growing up is loose teeth pulled too soon, and the sun that scrapes your eyes, bringing you to your guilt-drenched knees. growing up is hair chopped with your mother’s crafting scissors because you can’t cut what actually hurts and the stylist down the street charges $40 and the therapist across town asks for more. growing up is your mother telling you that she is doing her best and not yet understanding this is as much a plea for forgiveness as it is a vindication as it is the truth. growing up is rapid beats per minute of a tattoo gun on virgin skin and the crumpled of notes of how i used to feel. growing up is learning that love is the cigarette and hate is the smoke that inevitably swallows you whole. growing up is saying i love you to each other and meaning it from the worn down soles of matching pairs of white converse because love has not yet proven itself more hypothesis than truth.