I am allowed to look to my future with eager eyes.

And no, this is not my newest Manifesto Advocating for the Loss of Childhood Innocence.

SILLINESS BY CAMILLE GITOW 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 90

I’ve lived in this confused state lately, a state of apprehension and annoyance with my silliness.

Like I can’t believe it is me making these choices and memories.

The choices I’ve been making are not bad. I am choosing to use myself as a conduit for life experience because I am not myself and myself is not Camille.

The Camille I have so far learned to tolerate makes mistakes. She bumbles. She is silly.

She allows herself a leftover mini-danish at the summer camp she works at.

She straps on her pointe shoes and doesn’t bother to work harder when she falls, she merely moves on.

I do not plan to continue my acquaintance with this Camille. The Camille I choose to know is decisive.

She calculates sentences in her head with little stupid whimsical words that drip with a saccharine syrup.

She runs off of the caffeine of the ambitious at 1.23am, wit…