Her Blue Dress: A Collection (Watty's 2019 Winner)

15 on Instagram

I've deleted any proof I was ever 15 on Instagram. I'm waiting to delete the 16, 17, 20- something sugar bottle sip version of whoever I was that doesn't exist anymore. They say your body completely replaces itself every five years, every skin cell and blood drop. Therefore, I do not know her. I do not know the bootcut jeans tucked inside sequin boots. I do not know the hiding behind the mailbox on the windy, cold day waiting for the bus. Everything has been replaced; I do not know her.

Last week, the movie ticket man said, "Enjoy your movie." And I said, "You too." There are four years and 51 weeks before I do not know that woman. I want my darkest edges to be exfoliated away, all scraped and pushed down the drain until I am red and clean. I will not carry garbage.

I am the prettiest in the pictures I posted when I was 16. But I do not want the new stranger on my feed, scrolling through my years, to see my 16 and think she's gone downhill. Four years later, I know that little strand of pretty I once twisted between my fingers is still somewhere on my head. And maybe, some years down the road, as a woman that doesn't know me, I can build a pretty that will last. With the kind of skin that doesn't red or pore or puss. With one chin so it can be held high.

And in that pretty, I will look back at the 20 year-old post in all it's glory - the sugar bottle sip version of a woman held together by strings, rotted by hearth - and I will finally press delete. Because I, like the sequins, do not know her.