To my ten year old
Self:

I am not a melomaniac, but if I could
Tell you
Anything about what it's like to be
Seventeen
And constantly berated by questions asked by
Adults who are still
Looking
For their own answers, and who secretly
Believe
They might find a glimmer of truth in
Mine—

"Who are you?"


—It would be that when you're creating
Yourself,
And experimenting with your passions and
Talents, not yet
Revealed

That you are literally a tabula
Rasa
Of potential and success

That you are not
Limited
By what others tell you is your "gift", for some
Talents
Are not inherited, and none are
Obligational

What I'm saying is that you were born an artist, with a
Talent for metamorphosizing a
Blank
Canvas
Into something not unlike the Garden of
Eden

But you also are a
Blank
Canvas

And if the colors painted onto you seem to say
"I am you"
That you have the right to burst out
In
Song,
And say "No, I want to feel the rhythm of a melody that
Only I hear
In the soles of my feet and dancing on
My tongue"

No,
I am not a melomaniac, but if I'd known this
Sooner,
Maybe I could have
Been.