Marshmallowy fingers
Palms echoing lamely like rubber toys against plastic tables
Swollen and indented
My teacher holds my wrists away
And tells me
I am not young anymore
“You cannot act two-years-old”
When I am nine
I am out on the playground
My pink spaghetti straps struggles to find any hold on my tiny shoulders
Slick with sunscreen
Jello rolling down a bowling lane
I feel sweat between the skin of my arm and my side
And feel my whole body
Like a motley collection of spit and paint covered doll parts
Underneath a pile of tulle play clothes
We go inside
To a new classroom
Half our class is gone
We, now girls, are told
“You are changing”
A shrimp platter at Christmas
Do I like shrimp?
I swallow it whole
And tuck my complaints into my turtle neck—
Where it hurts my throat
I do not say why
But I tell my father I do not like it
It is four years later
The same party, the same shrimp platter
My father has forgotten I do not like shrimp
and he asks again
I respond, how it hurt my throat all those years ago
And he laughs
“Silly girl! You aren’t supposed to eat it whole!”
I learn I like shrimp
I’ve now shown the world I do
But suddenly I feel like a fish
Pushed harshly onto grating sand and pebbles
Gills forced to open to the sky
What face will the surface see?
I tell my mom that at my next eye appointment
I want black frames instead of blue
They can see me now
It makes me wonder
Will I be the same thing all together?
Can I learn to breathe when I think
one day I am meant for water
and the next
I am meant for air?
I am my sister’s doll
She practices braids in my hair
Tomorrow she is going to college
But she tells me she feels even younger than me
And so
I let her be young.
I keep her that way in my mind
And there,
I braid the hair of a younger girl too
And let her whisper about the world to me