i tried so hard to grow up.
my mother mocks me in the childish voice i've told her i hate.
i don't want to feel small again.
you're too sensitive, says my father over his wine glass.
no, i just made myself a different mind.
eight years old and i sleep to escape the hunger.
my legs hurt too much to carry me to the fridge.
i dropped my skirts in the goodwill bin and began to wear jeans every day.
i wanted to wear skirts again, but i didn't dare.
i made jokes about my disney princess phase instead.
six and a half and i'm asking my journal why people are so mean.
now i know that mean people are murderers, whether they intend it or not.
my mother tells me gleefully that she wants grandchildren because she has good genes.
but i don't, i think, remembering the days where an hour without pain was a blessing.
four years has my aunt been asking me if i had a boyfriend.
i never told her about my girlfriends.
i'm too young to have nightmares of being killed a thousand times over.
i'm too young for the fleeting thought of i want to die.
i think i grew up too fast.
