I was only one once—
or maybe I was three,
a chorus of quiet girls
stacked in the skin of me.
I asked, and the world—
without flinching—answered.
No fairy-tale endings,
no gentle edits.
Just the pulse of truth,
warm in the palm,
like something alive.
By five, I met Da Vinci
in a picture book I didn’t fully understand
but couldn’t stop staring at—
a man inside a circle,
arms stretching past reason,
telling me
that I, too, was geometry
made flesh.
I was six when I bought
a book about dogs giving birth—
not for the shock,
but for the story.
The cycle.
The way life
folded into itself
and opened again.
I was seven
when I learned about black holes.
Stephen Hawking’s voice
spoke in star-stuff and silence.
I didn’t know the math,
but I knew the feeling:
that some things are so powerful,
they bend even light
around their name.
No one warned me
the truth would be heavy.
But it was never weight I feared.
Only silence.
Only being told not to ask.
So I kept asking—
and the world,
bless it,
kept answering.
