9; i was feeling rather bitter

When you were a child, you collected snails in buckets. You slipped them into your pockets and in your school bag because you loved them and they were in danger of being crushed, just lying about like that.

                You were late for school every day that it rained. You used to walk very slowly those days, very carefully, so you were not to step on any of the worms that would sprawl their little pink bodies on the sidewalks on those most moist of days.

                You used to pick flowers by the playground. You used to scrape your knees. You used to lean your head against the window in the backseat of your father’s old car and wonder how the moon was able to follow you home like that.

                You used to be fresh and raw and honest and now you’re just bitter and grown-up and you don’t look out for the snails or the worms anymore. You’re seventeen and you’ve already died of old age.

                It all starts when you stop looking for insects. It all starts in high school. You think you’re aware but you’re wrong.

                Your eye sight gets worse. You don’t see the worms anymore, just puddles, and you work your way around them, so that you don’t get your shoes wet.

                You don’t cry as much. Snails become a French delicacy. You learn to say ‘snails’ in French and it sounds eloquent and pretty.

                You begin listening to music that sounds how you want to feel. It sounds heavy and alive and it sounds like its moving and you can feel it traveling through your veins. You watch the same movie with a different title. You stick mascara to your once feathery lashes and you watch them clump together. You cheer at sporting events-the kind that used to remind you of war. You don’t pluck petals for fortunes, they won’t tell you if he loves you or loves you not. You can’t do cartwheels anymore.  Your parents stop carrying you from the car to your bed when you fall asleep.

                You go to the gym to work out. You dress down for Halloween. You straighten your hair and yourself. You go out with a boy and you kiss and you expect butterflies but you get caterpillars instead and you let them bite at your leaves.

                You do all that because everybody else is doing it and they seem to be okay. You do all that because it seems right and because you can’t get away with hoarding snails anymore.

                That’s what high-school does to you, it rips the truth that you’ve sewn into your mind. They tell you that they’re teaching you, but you’re forgetting everything that you’ve ever known.

                You’re there, but you’re dust. You litter the hallways with all the other bodies. You are a number. You are everybody and nobody at the same time. You are hollow and filled to the brim.  You are undecided and you left your instinct in your kindergarten cubby along with your innocence and your toothy smile.

                You begin to hear new words that make you sad because their meanings are malicious and claw at your clothes. Everything wants to hurt you and you just want to be a passer-by.

                Time passes and you begin saying those words. They spew out of your mouth like a toxin. You spit poison. You breathe sin. It feels normal, but you stopped using that word a long time ago because you don’t really know what it means anymore.

                “That’s normal,” they say.

                You feel sad and that’s normal. You feel happy and that’s normal.

                You feel sad as hell and that’s normal and you’re hormonal.

                Adults like excuses, and for some reason, they think you do too. They quit the kind-talk once your limbs begin stretching and your school bag gets heavier. They question your future. They question your studies.

                You learn how to exaggerate because as much as you think you know what you want to do in the future, you don’t know anything at all.

                You toy with the idea of asking the flowers but you learn that the flowers are as naïve as you are.

                You learn to tilt your head up and blink very fast to prevent tears.

                You learn that you are alone. You learn that it’s unfair. You learn that the wallpaper is a safe place to be.

                You learn that you’re a clone and you hope that one day, a little girl will come across you and neatly rest you in her bucket.