"Portrait of a Childhood"
Memories of those early years come only in fragments—
soft sunlight, sand in the garden,
the sound of worn shoes brushing the earth.
And within those moments,
I was always under someone's gaze.
One day, at the edge of the garden,
an old man sat with his sketchbook open.
When I stood before the flowerbeds,
his pencil moved again and again,
pausing only for him to look up and smile—
as if to confirm something invisible.
What he drew was me.
"You have such a beautiful face," he said.
I didn't know what that was worth.
I only knew the strange feeling
of my existence taking shape
inside another person's eyes.
Another day, students from the middle school came to play.
They watched us with the calm assurance of those who already belong.
One of them patted my head and laughed,
"You look like a girl."
I couldn't answer.
I lowered my gaze.
I couldn't tell whether that was insult or praise—
only that something rough stirred inside my chest.
That night, to smooth the roughness,
I spoke to my mother.
She thought for a moment, then said,
"Perhaps you seemed special to that boy."
That word—special—
lingered strangely in my heart.
Even then, some part of me understood:
special can be both blessing and curse.
Back then,
I still believed in the world.
But with every gaze,
that trust was quietly scraped away.
The world seemed to accept me,
yet it was only observing.
I didn't yet have the words
for that difference—
only the faint roughness
it left beneath my skin.