Everyone has awkward years, but yours will be fantastically so.
You will have a series of bad haircuts.
You'll smoke two packs a day and be overweight.
You will marry badly and always make that face
when your mother says your name.
(Your own voice will deepen then get softer
like a stone of melting chocolate.)

Don't put your tongue on the window.
Though the rain there makes a mosaic of your face
until you can't tell just who you are,
this is who you are.

You will never be president.
Instead, you'll work fifty hours a week and always want
to get out of Queens
where you have a small garden and a basement apartment,
where you worry about the rent,
own thirty books you've never read
and more than one floral print dress.
You'll love cool mornings best—
the feel of feet across linoleum,
their catch and glide.

And when your little sister calls on so many late nights,
you'll be patient,
you'll repeat the coo and urging of today: “It’s okay.”
And you'll think of a train,
the smell of worn vinyl, something you've misplaced.
Some days it'll seem your life’s been wasted,
all of it procedure.
Gossip with the girls, Friday happy hour,
nylons drying on the sink.