Dear Little Me

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