have you ever walked
backwards out of a party?
it’s how i’ve pictured
growing up.
smiling and laughing
to the last moment,
not wanting to leave
yet wanting nothing more.
dread in your bones
in your stomach in your
eyes in your throat in
the most inescapable way
just dread.
and then you’re outside
the room and
you can hear it, god isn’t that cruel?
and you go to the bathroom and you can still
hear it a bit -
mistakes with a cushion,
safety wheels,
tricycles,
fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on yous
and naïveté kindness
childhood.
i grow up like i always thought
i might; unnamed like
my most precious poetry. unnamed
and faded and jaded
and kind and quiet and keeping to myself.
i grow up slowly and yet
it is one night
that i am awake alone
at an unknown hour
and i cry and weep for the
child i can no longer be.
i grow up slowly and yet
it is when i am driving in
silence with an empty car
that a sob resides in my chest
and my eyes gloss over
but i blink tears away and click my indicator
to turn left.
i grow up slowly
yet
i am suddenly not a child.
i still feel like one.
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