little.
You make me feel different. Like I’m flying. Or falling. I can’t really tell anymore. You’re sweet and you’re kind to me. And I appriciate it. I appriciate you.
But I’m scared. To be this close. Inside and outside. I am young. Sixteen is old, but it is also so young. I need to stay young for a little while longer. I didn’t enjoy it as much when I was that age. I want to enjoy it now. So I think I will.
Or maybe pretnding I’m little is just a defense mechanism. After all, after everything that’s happened, I keep all my checker pieces in the back. I never let anyone in anymore. Whoever was there before the walls were built, they stay there, inside. They see the vulnerable parts of me.
You were so close to finding me before any of it. God, you found me on the damn day it happened. But, after all, you didn’t. You missed it. You missed the brilliance of who I was. I really like the person I was. I wore my heart on my sleeve, I loved who I loved, I was who I was, and that was all. I didn’t need to be anyone else, anywhere else. I was little and I enjoyed it. For a few weeks, maybe even a month, I loved being little.
But then it happened. And I stopped being little. I started being seen as an adult. And that’s not a good memory to have associated with realizing you’re not young anymore.
So I pretend I’m a child.
I’m twelve.
I’m nine.
I’m six.
And I refuse to fall in love. Or be close. To anyone. Because that’s not what children do.
You poke fun and call me a baby. And you have no idea how right you are. I’m growing up, but I keep stopping the process because I can’t be growing up. I refuse to. Because then they can get me.
