Will never meet the real me
The me that was supposed to be,
But instead will be stuck with the me you turned me into.
You took the little me and turned me small.
Of all the things you did to me
The worst was that you ignored me
You ignored me and ignored me and you didn’t do it on accident
You weren’t too busy too distracted too inexperienced
You ignored me until I became smaller
You ignored me to make me smaller
On purpose
And every time you ignored me
(Which was my whole life)
I kept diminishing
Extinguishing
Vanishing
Disappearing
Smalling
Oh how you succeeded in stealing me
In ignoring me in starving me in eliminating me
In not touching me, in depriving me of everything, even air
In making me smaller.
And now I don’t know how to make myself unsmall again.
thirty
“This isn’t good, Isaiah,” Faith says.
We’re back inside, and Eden has gone up to her room to nap. She nearly fell as we were going back up the stairs, she was so emotionally spent. Manuela went up with her.
“You think?” I snap at Faith and, as usual, regret it. “I know it’s not good. Do you have her therapist’s number?”
“Of course. But Eden… Eden needs you too.”
I nod. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying.”
My brother’s phone keeps blowing up with messages and missed calls, and I look at him anxiously. He looks like he doesn’t even notice it lighting up every two seconds, even though it’s clasped in his ringed fingers—but I know him. He notices everything.