i feel for the plants that have been uprooted. i understand now, how it feels to be dug up and re-planted. to lose your grip, to leave pieces behind. i know, i do, that sometimes it is for the best. the pot becomes too small, the leaves wilt, there are parasites in the soil.
but as i lie in my childhood bed, i wonder about human attachment. how we fear most losing ourselves, our pieces.
the atmosphere of this room has always felt so heavy, it lays like a blanket. it comforts and smothers in the same motion, and i fidget how i did when i was five. this planter is too small for me now, just this side of cramped, but always i come back. to the knickknacks, to the frayed-up carpet. to the sun that slants through the windows the same way it has for nineteen years.
someday, i will lose these things. already they have begun to fragment into yesterday, last month, three years, some summers ago. someday, the years we have piled on will be too many to remember. and i know, i do, what a blessing so many moments are.
from here i can see the edges of the backyard. the leaves are abandoning the trees, even while a late summer hornet drones against the window. the sky here has always felt far away. when i was two feet tall i thought of being a giant, of looming and finally seeing what lies on the other side of the horizon. i used to imagine the relief of finally making it to where i always doubted i would.
my gaze shifts back, inwards, trailing the walls like a hand reached out. i lock eyes with a poster across the way. beside its frozen smile, i notice the edges that have begun to yellow. i close my eyes to it. breathe in the worn-out cotton of my sheets. i am taller now, but no closer to being ready.
i sleep, and when i dream, i am one hundred feet tall.
