there are no legible signs

everything out of context starts to get so strange. drinking the kind of coffee that i used to hate, finding the little pile of change you pulled from out my pockets before you did the laundry, noticing the smell of smoke on my fingers and it smells safe, it smells like a sort of home i’ve always known. october came quick and it feels so familiar and so different. sometimes these things just sort of sneak up on you. when you realize you’re not seventeen anymore. when you walk into a room full of people and for once you’re not questioning whether they notice you - whether they should notice you, whether they notice you noticing them, and the endless list of who am i and who are they and more importantly who am i to them. when you’re doing things that scare you because maybe these are the things that help make you. when you still love a boy that’s not a stranger anymore, when he still loves you even though he’s seen you without your hair brushed or a shirt on or in his jeans the next morning when you go to grab the paper or right after you cried because things got hard and you weren’t ready. these things just sneak up on you. when you realize that all this time you were so used to life building it’s self around you and suddenly one day it occurs to you that maybe you’ve been building your own all along.

--Ashli Wood