C. Eliot Mullins

Letter to my 14-year-old self

Check this out. 

You’re going to marry a chick, a woman, a queer, a sometimes-she/sometimes-they butch babelicious. 

I can see your confusion.  I can see your fear.

This is your pep talk.  Don’t look away from your life.

You are waiting for you.

Your life is waiting for you. 

You’ll get married in a long blue dress showing more skin than you’re comfortable with. But you’ll be comfortable. 

You’ll call yourself beautiful. I notice you are looking at your hands. You don’t believe it. You are crafting the story where you are not beautiful. When the boys do what they will do, you are still beautiful. Your life is still waiting. And you are definitely 100% without a doubt marrying her. 




link to video 



C. Eliot Mullins (she/her) is an adjunct instructor, mental health therapist, friend of cats, lifelong Pacific Northwesterner, extreme introvert, and an increasingly fearless lesbian poet. This is her first published poem.