By Rachel Simon, Editor in Chief, Emerson College I am too short for that ride. I am too little for that chair. I am too small for big ideas, too tiny to take a stand. Everyone I know looks down on me. When I am young, I try to make up for my height, but I can only jump so high. so I am shy. I make friends by laughing, not speaking. I cry when I am left alone, so I cry often. Mom’s at work and Dad’s on the train and so I am babysat by a fat woman who smells like sour milk and calls black people “colored” when we’re watching TV. Those first few years, when the door opens and my mother walks in, burdened by briefcases and guilt, I rush towards her and Become small in her arms. But even those few moments of peace Are gone with the seasons. I am older and I have grown, But I am still too small for the thoughts That rush in and keep me awake because I am constantly thinking, worrying, doubting. I am too small when my father towers over me, screaming about quizzes in math and tests I forgot to get signed. I am too small when I take my first sip of beer and hiccup, embarrassed in front of kids older and more experienced than me. I am too small when I lie in your arms and brush my toes against your thigh, but this is a different, good kind of small. For once I am happy to feel minute. Maybe it’s because of you, it’s always because of you. When we were sixteen you asked me out and I said yes partly because you were nervous and cute but mostly because when we were little our teacher asked what you wanted for Christmas and you said that all you wanted was for John Henry to be able to walk again someday. I don't know if you remember that, but I never forgot it, and I hold onto that bit of sweet innocence even when you are cold and callous and mean. We went to the park to take pictures, that first day, and we sat under the shade of changing leaves. You kissed me, fast and nervous like you were scared I'd say no. In time, I learned the curls of your hair and the tilt in your laugh. | I got to know your quirks and your dreams, and it gave me such happiness that I was the one you confided in. I let them fill me up and give me reason. And then, of course, the inevitable happened and you chose someone else. For months I was sad and lonely but I could never seem to bring myself to hate you, even though all my friends told me I should. "He's an asshole" He's just a dumb boy" they'd say, and I'd shake my head and disagree because I knew you were so much more than that. And then suddenly one night in the summertime you grazed your foot against my shin underneath the table at a party and all of a sudden it was like the past eighteen months never happened, we were back in tenth grade under the shade of changing leaves. Yet even when we’re together, after eighteen months of trying so hard not to care and pretending other boys were like you, I still question it. I refuse to believe that I’ve gotten what I want. I don’t feel the rush of emotion, the satisfaction that I had expected and yearned for. I am happy, but not completely. I am told that I am wrong to be with you, that you will hurt me, just like you did to her and did to me, the first time. I am told to be careful with you, be careful what I wish for. I wished for you and here you are and for once, I’m not empty, not wanting what I don’t have. But I find myself making excuses for you when I shouldn’t have to, when I told myself I never would. I wonder, did I make the right choice? But I shake my head and clear my thoughts and say yes, yes, I did, because when I’m with you it feels so good, so right, so perfect in its imperfection. |