Best Read at Any Age.

At 16-years-old I compiled a list of names,

And for each one, I dealt a corresponding number.

I began every subsequent day of the next six years of my life,

Internally cross-referencing each name against its given sum.

My list grew with me,

It expanded with my revelations,

It grew four-fold with each year I studied,

And oftentimes it was just a matter of a tear shed at a good book, or in the silence of the cinema,

For another pairing to be added to the list.

As time elapsed I fuelled myself off these correlations,

Every ounce of dedication that merited small victories I attributed to my list.

And in equal measure it became my harshest critic.

Year to year it grew more daunting to consider myself among those names,

The idea that I might not ever make it myself defeated its sole purpose,

Because it was an anxiety I’d chosen to nurture.

At 22 I look back at the list I began compiling 6 years ago to the estimated day,

The first few names read:

1. Virginia Woolfe – 23

2. Mary Shelley -21

3. Mindy Kaling – 19

4. Natalie Portman – 12

The list goes on, exhausting itself with expectation,

Tens of irreplicable stories of success,

Women who surpassed expectation and did so at an age I fail to even remember being.

And yet,

These pairings I now recognise to have no correlation at all,

Because the sum of each womens achievements cannot be tallied,

Or valued by the age that they received acclaim.

With this knowledge I craft a new list,

An accumulation of my own small merits,

With token reminders that Louisa May Alcott was first published at 37,

That Viola Davis secured her first major role at 43.

Alongside this I attempt to value the success of those around me, and I find its number insurmountable, too big to calculate.

At my lists conclusion I realise it follows no pattern at all,

Every attempt to order and re-order fails and in turn I see that

I cannot place myself squarely amongst these names.

So I give up,

And decide not to place myself at all.