New, through a caterpillar that branches into a butterfly

and the cocoon that she once called home.

New, through imagination and reality, fantasy and truth,

through the questions we are unafraid of asking. 

New, through authenticity

the way it conflicts with the old

yet cannot exist without it.

New, through first loves, 

through words, spoken aloud and now 

glimmering, switching perspectives

the ways I try to see from me where you see from you.

New, through your name, my identity, a new light

through the newness of beauty that is ubiquitously flawed

New, through the leaving our parents yet staying with our childhood, 

New, through the delicate, intricate balance between the past and our future, 

Cultures and histories intertwined, glimmering with weight and hope.

New, through blossoming friendships,

New, through battlegrounds, fights where nobody wins

Through stories that have no resolutions and will not anytime soon.

New, through stories of our past that are ever-reverberating.

New, through physicality, new through temporality, new through gentleness

The past is ever contingent on the new. 

New, through the separation of the past, present, and future, 

Or the discovery of the needle and thread that will sew them all together.