Inspired by Pearl Jam's Daughter

She steps past the breakfast room,
and sees her mom at the kitchen table.
I'm gone.
Don't stay out too late.
Her mother recites her response in a tone
borrowed from Reader's Digest;
the favorite table accessory since Sophia started high school.
So powerful the written word her mom's eyes are stuck to it.

Sophia walks faster towards the porch,
and almost skips down the steps with her brother's bike.
She looks at her watch as she pedals across the crosswalk.

She doesn't know the way around her hometown in stories.
She turns left at the stop sign with the oldest dent,
she pedals faster under leaves heavy with humidity,
and readjusts her backpack as she passes
the elementary school swing set.

She abruptly stops pedaling to watch 2 birds circling and circling.
Against the pane of air she feels their language with her fingertips.
They descend towards recently seeded earth, and she saves the story
with a cell phone click.

Sophia's backpack holds her pens, a sketch, and her yearbook.
She ignored the invitation for a high school photo
as she never knew herself as stilled, or black and white. She's practiced
the sketch of herself for over three days, decreasing the drawing speed,
and content with how she's defined.

Her friends wait with their pens in hand ready for the exchange. She opens
a yearbook to the space that should have been her.
She draws "C" for "Congratulations" as a floating pool of blue.
Her blank space grows into waves of her life,
and she sketches herself quickly as lush undiscovered land.
She twists her high school ring which fits perfectly.