It's always a bit disorienting to go back in time and read poems you wrote when you were younger. Even going back to read my COVID-isolation poems feels strange, like I'm a completely different person now than the one who wrote them. Sometimes, for me, it's a bit like picking old scabs. Sometimes you're healed underneath, sometimes there's a scar, and sometimes you make yourself bleed and have to start all over again.

Thanks for sharing your teenage self's private poems. Only you know how she would have felt about publishing these, but I hope it is healing for her to know that others relate to them.