There are thousands of poems by women
who were misunderstood

with fears of either becoming an old maid,
or of marriage.

I’ll turn 20 soon and the number
feels erratic, chaotic

in my mouth;
too salty, too hard to chew.

When I turn 20, I want to become
abstract and cryptic,

a woman who is one of those pieces of art
that is easy to look at, but impossible to fathom.

But we are all misunderstood
in the worst possible way;

our poems are too metaphorical,
our wants and needs are too far fetched.

When I am 20, can I be opaque enough
to be the beautiful enigma of a man’s dreams,

yet transparent enough
to be the validated woman of my own?

——
Emily Nash is an 18 year old who resides in Austin, Texas. She is a Journalism and English major at the University of Texas, and enjoys reading novels, Latin American art, her fat and fluffy cat, and is almost always dehydrated. Emily has had a not-so recent experience with heartbreak, which has influenced her best poetry.