It’s October of 2025.  The smell of decay lingers underneath the morning dew, and the sunshine trickles to the forest floor like golden leaves.  The monarch butterflies and the indigo buntings have left the country. The land grows colder, the forest shows her true colors, and the flowers curl under the biting frost. I can feel the shift of the seasons, and the slow, inevitable march of time.

We weren't supposed to know we were beautiful or sexy.

I didn’t realize why inner beauty was so important until I began to grow up. Inner beauty was important because outer beauty was dangerous. Inner beauty and outer beauty were diametrically opposed warriors.

I knew I wasn’t beautiful outwardly, so, like other girls my age, I learned how to be inwardly beautiful. I wanted to leave beauty wherever my fingerprints landed, whether it was a dress, a childhood, or a painting.