An aging series
©ESR 2026

Prologue: The Attic at 9 (opening to the poem cycle)

She wasn’t supposed to be up there.
But the grown-ups were arguing again…
about money, about God,
about all the things no one ever explained.

So she slipped away.

Past the hallway where the wallpaper peeled like tired skin,
past the door with the squeaky hinge
that everyone pretended didn’t lead anywhere.

The attic was dust and moth-wing stillness.
Wooden beams that whispered old names.
A single window blurred by time,
and in its shadow—
a mirror.

Tall. Free-standing.
Framed in wood the color of secrets.

She didn’t see her reflection at first.
She saw a flicker.

Then a flash.
And then…
herself,
older.

And behind that version, another.
And another.
And another still.
They were waiting.

Every her she had yet to become.
And the first one smiled,
tapped gently on the glass,
and said:

“Ask us.”



Age 13

She stands with arms folded,
in a little navy blue dress with white polka dots.

Eyes dark-ringed from the weight of pretending.
She does not smile.

She leans in close to the glass and whispers,
like she knows how much it will hurt…

“Don’t trust his kindness.”

She says it flatly.
Bitter and betrayal broken.

She knows what love should never sound like,
and what it steals in silence.

Age 15

She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor,
headphones tangled in her lap,
journal open but the page still blank.

Ink smudged by tears like war paint
as if writing it down would summon
what no one else ever saw.

She looks up from beneath her lashes,
a girl who’s seen too much, too soon,
and her voice is almost kind…
but heavy with knowing.

“You did what you had to do to survive.
You were never at fault.
Let them say what they will.
Music is your sanctuary,
when no one else stayed.
Keep writing. One day,
the words will stop trembling too.”

Age 22

She leans heavy in the mirror’s frame,
her eyes rimmed with red,
fingernails chewed down
from nights that bled into mornings
without mercy.

There’s a shadow clinging to her skin,
the kind that doesn’t leave bruises
but leaves marks anyway.

She’s thinner now…not just in body,
but in belief.

And yet…

there’s something in her eyes…
not hope, exactly,
but the memory of breath
after almost forgetting how.

She speaks in a hush,
like someone afraid the truth
might vanish if said too loud:

“You will have your Dark Night of the Soul in broad daylight.”
“You’ll feel there is no reason to live anymore and there is only one way to stop the pain from devouring you…”

“It’s not true.”

She doesn’t smile.
She doesn’t try to comfort.
She just tells you what you’ll need to remember
when the light lies
and the darkness pretends to be your only friend—
while its teeth gnaw your skin.

Age 26 — The One Who Almost Disappeared

She stands stiff in a blazer that doesn’t fit,
tight at the arms, wrong at the soul.

Stress-eaten breakfast churns behind lipstick
too bold for the interview room.

But it’s the only part of her that still feels like her.
The waiting room buzzes with fluorescent silence,
clipboard questions that beg her to lie politely.

She smooths her resume for the fourth time…
trying to make her jagged edges sound like bullet points.

When she speaks from the mirror, her voice is low,
half-swallowed by years of self-editing.

“You’re trying so hard to sound like them.
To dress like them.
To fold yourself neatly enough to be welcomed.
But you are not made of bullet points.

You are not built to be small.
They will call your flavor ‘too much.’
They will say your voice is ‘intense.’
Don’t let them trick you into thinking
palatable means powerful.

Keep your edge.
Even if it costs you the room.

Some doors aren’t meant to open for you
because you were meant to build your own.”

Age 30

The One Who Wasn’t Made for Polite Applause

She leans over the sink at 11:47 p.m.,
rinsing the salt from her face,
where tears dried stiff like battle residue,
not mascara—she never wore it.

They never earned that performance.
The overhead light hums like it’s judging her.
A half-eaten dinner sweats on the counter.

Deadlines stack like bones behind her eyes.
She once believed in work worth doing.

Now she tracks every hour
like a debt she never asked for,
paid in tension headaches and withheld recognition.

The job is hers.
The pressure is hers.
The silence, too.

All of it tastes like cardboard praise
and meetings that echo with nothing.

She looks in the mirror
and sees a woman being erased by degrees,
every “thank you” without a raise,
every “you’re so strong” masking a shackle.

She studies you now,
and her voice is quieter than you expect:

a truce offered in the middle of a storm.

“You don’t owe them your softness
just because they can’t handle your fire.
They don’t get to name what success means for you.
You do.”

Age 35

The Archivist of Almosts

She stands in the hallway,
barefoot, holding a mug gone cold.
The lamp in the corner flickers like it, too,
is remembering something it can’t say aloud.

There are boxes in the closet
she hasn’t opened in five years.
Old dreams folded beside paystubs
and letters never sent.

She swears they whisper her name at night.
She’s not sad.
She just doesn’t laugh like she used to.

There’s a rhythm now—
emails, errands, expectations.

But when the music stops,
she still dances in her kitchen,
quiet hips swaying to a beat she never taught anyone else.

She looks at you with eyes
that have measured too many silences.
And her voice is velvet and veined with steel:

“Not all growth looks like blooming.
Sometimes it’s the roots
choosing not to die in soil that never saw you.”

Age 40

The Woman with the Spine of Smoke and Stone

She leans against the doorframe,
watching someone she loves walk away
without slamming the door.

It’s not the leaving that hurts…
it’s that she doesn’t beg them to stay.

Her hands are stronger now.
Not from lifting weights,
but from not holding onto what cuts her anymore.

She wears her grief like a necklace—
not hidden, not flaunted,
just part of how she dresses now.

A pearl for every silence she chose
instead of a scream.

Her hair may be a little grayer.
Her laugh lines a little deeper.

But god, when she looks in the mirror now…
she recognizes herself.

She says nothing at first.
Then with a breath that feels like a vow:

“You will forgive them,
not because they deserve it,
but because carrying them
was killing you.”

“And you’ll forgive yourself next.
That’s the one you’ve been avoiding.”

Age 50

The Woman Who Doesn’t Apologize for Taking Up Space

She sits on the porch
barefoot, in a chair she bought herself,
coffee in one hand,
a novel she’s read five times in the other.

She’s not waiting for anything.
She’s not rushing toward anything.

She laughs…
loud and sudden…
when she remembers how small they once made her feel.

They’d be appalled to know
she takes up this much sky now.

There’s a softness to her…
but it’s not weakness.

It’s weathered strength.
Like river rocks, smooth only because
they stood against the current for so long.

She says,
and means it:

“Some of the things you thought would break you
were only breaking the shell
you were never meant to live in.”

“Let the shell go.
You don’t need it where you’re going.”

Age 70

The One Who Has Learned to Bless Her Scars

She’s tending the garden now…
the one that never bloomed when she was younger
because she had no time,
no peace,
no safe place for roots.

Now?

The soil knows her.
The sun stays longer when she steps outside.
Birds visit her like they’re checking in
on a beloved elder.

Her hands are weathered maps
of everything she survived.

And when she kneels in the dirt,
it’s not penance.

it’s prayer.

She speaks without looking up,
not to the girl, but to the aching places within her:

“Time does not heal all wounds,
but it teaches you
which ones deserve your tending…
and which ones you can finally lay down
like tools at the end of a harvest.”

“And baby?
You still grow.
Even now.
Especially now.”

Age 85

The One Who Remembers the Sound of Her Own Laughter

She’s sitting in a rocking chair that creaks like an old friend,
wrapped in a shawl stitched from stories
nobody thought to ask about
until now.

Her laugh sneaks out…unexpected,
raspy and alive.

It startles even her.
Not because it’s rare,
but because it’s returned.

Her photo albums are full,
but there are no captions…
only fingerprints,
coffee rings,
and the ghost of lipstick on a page or two.

She pats the cushion beside her
and smiles at the younger self standing in awe.

“I forgot how many times we made it through.”

She leans in, whisper-soft:
“There were nights I didn’t think we’d see daylight.”
“But we did.
And not just once.”

She taps her temple.

“There’s a symphony up here.
Of tears, yes…but also mischief,
and resilience,
and love that didn’t ask permission.”

“Don’t let them shame your joy.
Don’t wait till you’re old
to take up space
and laugh with your whole body.”

Age 99

The One Who Knows How Fast It Goes

She’s already awake
when the sun blinks over the windowsill,
wrapped in layers
more memory than fabric.

There’s a tremor in her fingers,
but not in her voice.
Her spine curls with gravity’s stories,
but her eyes…
they hold lightning in their edges.

She doesn’t say hello.
She doesn’t say your name.
She only studies you
as if measuring the shape of your soul
against all the versions you’ve ever been.

A single exhale…
not tired,
just precise.

She nods at the mirror like it owes her nothing.

Then she says: “It goes by so fast.”

She doesn’t elaborate.
Doesn’t need to.
Because the words strike
like thunder through your ribs.

Not a warning.
Not regret.
A benediction.A truth.

And before you can ask more,
before you can reach out to her…
she’s already looking past you,
through the attic walls,
into everything still unfinished.

Age 101

The Final Reflection

She doesn’t move when you arrive.
She doesn’t need to.
She is standing

…barefoot on the mirror-glass…
as though time never touched her.

Her hair is white,
but her skin has no age.

There are laugh lines,
scar lines,
sleep creases,
and stories
etched like scripture across her body.

Not erased. Not shamed.
Claimed.

She’s wearing the dress you buried.
The one they never let you wear.

And her eyes…
Her eyes are not soft.

They are the eyes of a question
sharpened over a century of silence.

Of watching.
Of waiting.

And she asks…
not cruel,
not kind,
not with pity
but with depth
so vast it steals the breath from your lungs:

“Who are you?”

She lets the words settle,
as if they were a final test,
a final thread
in the loom of everything you’ve become.

And then…
she reaches forward.

Not to touch you.
But to place a single finger
against the mirror’s glass.

Where it aligns
with the thudding pulse at your heart.

The silence stretches long.
Long enough for a lifetime.

And then—she smiles.
Not because you’ve answered.

But because she knows…
you will.



Epilogue 

“Through the Mirror, From Me to Her”

The Final Reflection

I found you again today.
Not by accident.
Not by ache.
But by choice.

The attic was as dusty as ever,
smelling of old wood and forgotten summers…
but I climbed the stairs anyway.
This time… I brought no fear.

The mirror didn’t shimmer like magic.
It just waited.

Quiet. Steady.
Like it always had.
Like you always had.
And there you were.

Barefoot.
A little wild.
A little wary.

Your palms clenched at your sides like you didn’t know what to do with the wanting.
But I didn’t cry this time.
I didn’t flinch or ask for anything.
I just knelt in front of you,
with my calloused knees and weathered eyes and said:

“I remember everything.
Even when you tried to forget.
Even when it hurt too much to hold.”

Your fingers twitched.
You looked over your shoulder like someone might stop you,
like love had always come with a leash.

But I just smiled.
Open.
Sure.

“There was never anything wrong with you,” I whispered,
“only with the world that didn’t know how to hold something as bright and breakable and brave as you.”

And you reached out.
Gods, you reached out.

Fingertips to glass….
and this time,
no cold.
No barrier.
Just skin to skin.
Present to past.
Child to woman.
Wound to healing.

“I don’t want to run anymore,” you said.
“I want to believe in us.”
And I said: “We made it.
You and me and all the girls we’ve been.
We made it.
We’re still here.”

The mirror didn’t disappear.
It didn’t shatter.
It just held us.

Like a doorway we could finally step through together.