The Closed Doors

by Pauline Albanese

Did I sell my happiness and my innocence for a few pomegranates seeds?

I wanted to mimic adulthood, strength; I wanted to come back home in the middle of the night, to let my hair down, to keep my eyelids open when that nameless boy kissed me in the fog light; I wanted to hold on to his neck; I wanted to lift up my skirt; I wanted to hide behind stones and behind bushes and, screaming, scare the magpies and the finches away; I wanted to steal grapes from the fields.