over early coffee, a friend reminds you 
how young you truly are, how
your head & heart are developing 
with a rapidness too invisible to praise. 
it feels so obvious, yet you forget all the time.
look, every day you unveil a new shade
of yourself, strange unseen tones bleeding
together on your palette. look
how your face has shifted its shape over the years.
how your teeth could always be whiter, sure, 
your skin clearer. you are so quick to mourn
lost time that you forget how much sky
lives above you this instant. you see a double rainbow 
& you know it will fade: there’s a familiar impulse 
to take a photo. to capture time with anything
but your own eyes. look,
you do not need to mourn or miss
who you were in your younger years.
you have always been chameleon-hearted
& prone to change. but consider
how little fear you held back then.
see how you always wish
your voice was another’s? the tragedy of that.
how far you are from those days
of careless joys, from cross-country
practice in the mist of August mornings,
from friends clustered
around the firepit like stars, laughter rising
like woodsmoke. see how you watched
the colors grow muted as half-bright embers
fizzled against the backdrop of dusk. how
you were the last one left glowing. 

Em Townsend is the author of two chapbooks: Astronaut of Loss (Alien Buddha Press, 2025) and growing forwards / growing backwards (Bottlecap Press, 2023). Featured work appears in Gone Lawn, Chestnut Review, Verse Daily, West Trade Review, Frozen Sea, Unbroken Journal, and elsewhere. Read more: https://townsend31.wixsite.com/emtownsend