Who was the child you were
Not the one in the photographs. The one who was here before you learned which parts of yourself to bring forward.
There is a photograph somewhere of you at five or six.
You look at it now and feel two things at once.
That was me.
That wasn't me.
Both true. Neither cancels the other.
The child had your name.
Answered to it.
Had a favorite color, a way of falling asleep, opinions about food.
None of those preferences survived.
The name did.
Something underneath the name did too, though it's hard to say what.
I used to think growing up was accumulation.
You add years, add experiences, add a self on top of the self you were.
Now I think it's stranger than that.
The child didn't get buried under the adult.
The child is still the one looking out.
The face changed.
The voice changed.
The thing doing the looking has been here the whole time, quietly, with no announcement, watching every version of you take its turn at the front.
You have been alone with that watcher your entire life.
Not lonely.
Alone in the specific sense that no one else has ever been inside the room where it sits.
Friends have stood at the window.
People you have loved have pressed their hands to the glass.
The room itself has only ever had one occupant.
That is not sad.
That is just the shape of being a person.
The child knew this before they had words for it.
You knew it lying in bed at night, listening to the house settle, understanding without being taught that you were the only one who would ever hear what you were hearing from exactly here.
You still are.