I remember when you were five years old
And your feet were so small
They could fit into my hands now
You stepped over the threshold tentatively like
A baby horse taking its first steps
What felt like a thousand eyes all swiveled towards you
And that was when the shaking started
And after that the shaking never stopped
You quivered down to the soles of your shoes because of
A question so simple even the
Rats in the cage by the window
Could have answered it
But you couldn’t
Your little lips parted
But they were cracked, and your throat was all dried up
You struggled and a breath slipped past your crooked teeth
But the words wouldn’t come
I remember when you were seven years old
And fear coiled like a snake inside your stomach
When the teacher called out, “Recess!”
And you would freeze down to your very toes
You felt like you were going to throw up
Overwhelmed by all the dread and the tension and the anxiety
So you ran to the illusions that were your only friends
I remember you used to pretend to play their games because
They never saw you, and you
Ran alongside someone else when they played tag because
No one would chase you, and
You didn’t even get the chance to pretend to play
When they gathered on the ramparts of the playground
Because no one could hear you
You relinquished yourself to finding happiness by watching them smile because
No one noticed when you hung back
I remember when you were nine years old
And the boys used to make a game out of your silence
While your gut spun and your chest tightened
And you studied the cracks in the school desk and
Twiddled your number 2 pencil
Listening as their voices rushed like water out of their mouths
Teasing you with their incessant questions
All of them wondering the same supercilious things
Who can get her to talk first?
Who can make her forget it’s all just play to them?
I remember how you used to plaster on a smile when you were eleven years old
How you pretended you had grandiose adventures in the cramped middle school hallways
And chattered away with all the friends you had made
When all you did was study the maps on the walls
Wishing you were anywhere but here
I remember when you were fifteen
Your childhood had passed, and no one
Had ever realized that something was
Wrong
You never knew that life was more than faking happiness and
Watching others laugh
You never knew that who you thought you were
Was never who you are
But you would wake up soon
You would see the truth soon
After all, that was when I did, when I was just fifteen years old
About the Creator
L. J. Knight
I'm the girl who writes poetry in coffee shops, who walks the halls with a book under her nose, lost in her thoughts. I'm the girl with the quiet voice and the smart eyes, the one who dreams for the moon and hopes to land among stars.
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