A beaded rosary rests
Around my neck,
The crucifix hitting my navel.
I can’t let everything go to waste,
I feel like my youth has been a waste.
I want to be a child again—
Reset and start over again—
Why can’t I be a child again?
Let the wind bring back my innocence

The future is always
A new version of the past;
The present is just a fresh memory—
Change will come just as it goes
Like a wave curling into itself,
The sea foam lining the shore
Like soldiers

I’ll sing my inner child to sleep
With my 2001 CD player.
I’ll lay myself in a time capsule,
Set an alarm for twenty years.
Maybe I’ll be reborn,
Maybe I’ll still be young,
Maybe innocence will find me again

I am weeping
I am weeping

Keep the rosary for safekeeping.
No mirror will witness my aging,
Not a sound will peep from my lips,
Just the music coming from my headphones—
A lullaby, a solace hymn, a pop song
On repeat

Sarah Borruto is the author of Damsel in Dystopia (Alien Buddha Press, 2022) and has been published in The Luna Collective, Train River Poetry’s Winter 2020 Anthology, Brave Voices Magazine, and the Suffolk County Poetry Review.