Do you remember the days when you scooped me up and I thrived in your sand-grain pores? It was autumn then, the leaves were too crisp and red back then, and you know how terrified of fire I was. In the summers I turned into burning coal and cracking volcano shells, and in the winter I would be blown away in the wind, acrobatic summersaults until I became another piece of hail in an ice storm.

But the hail is beginning to thaw and soak sweetly in the swelling ground. The mud will spring grass and flowers and forests will grow before my eyes. I’m still a naive fledgling but you have your own freedom to chase after. I’m the flower under the stone, and it’s my time, I can feel it on the rise now, to lift it off with my own hands and blood vessels and adrenaline. I need to reach up and turn to face the sun. I need to hold on to its rays with my delicate rain fingers until I turn green, but for now I’m only white, white as snow, white as an eggshell, white as an empty and broken canvas.

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The world opens up and splits in two, but I figure that’s just how it works.

Everyone runs and screams and panics but I can only count down the seconds. They cry for help. They hide under their desks. And chanting throughout their bloodstream is “get out get out getoutgetout.” I meditate.

But don’t mistake my actions for calmness. I am not calm. I am the epicenter of this epidemic, the pupil of this eye, the magnetic pole which the compasses all point to. I am the cause and the effect, I am the fear in their eyes and I cause it too. My insides all crack and I explode and I decide to take the world down with me, just for kicks. I’ll show the world my insides-- but just for fifteen seconds. Fifteen is enough. In fifteen I’ll take lives and homes. In fourteen I’ll break legs and break hearts. In thirteen I’ll collapse buildings and nervous systems. In twelve--

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When I grow up I want to be a scientist.

I want to have a formula named after me, a space craft, a brand new invention. I will collect patents. I will win noble prizes in every category.

When I grow up, I want to be an artist. I want to paint what I see in my eyes just to see if my brain is contaminated. I want to be abstract but pure and surreal and vibrant. I want to paint the crevices of my irises a more vivid color, but would the world look any different then?

When I grow up I want to learn all the languages fluently. When I grow up I want to see the ever expanding universe as I desire. When I grow up I want to travel to distant galaxies and invent the cure for cancer, aids, depression, the common cold, the energy crisis--I want to make it happen. I want answers. I want to learn and know and grow faster than the speed of light. I want to think even as I sleep.

I want to be a philosopher. A musician. I want the world to bounce to my rhythm and rhyme and every sound will be nothing but music. I want to sing instead of talk and dance instead of walk. I want to be a choreographer, a rocket scientist, a doctor, a police officer, a lover, a fighter, a car racer, a pharmacist, a representative, a fire fighter, search and rescue, ambidextrous, psychiatrist, telephone operator, your plumber, your neighbor, a traveling salesman--

When I grow up I want everything.

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For some reason or other, I have always been short.

I’ve gotten used to it, though, maybe it’s to my benefit, even. You see, I never look up at people. It hurts my neck and my head. I stare at shoes--I see you’re wearing those ugly striped socks again today--because I’m afraid to look anyone in the eye.

Maybe it would be best to be tall. Maybe I could see over everyone’s head and look up instead. Maybe I could look at the sky and watch the clouds change shape and pretend I was elsewhere. Maybe I’d just attract attention, maybe I’d have to resign myself to the shadows, maybe I’d have to go out only at night, but I could always pick up star gazing.

But more than shoes or the sky, I stare into space. Scatterbrain. Head in the clouds. No, I’m not listening. Inside my head can be brilliant landscapes that an artist would dream of. Inside my head can be twisted, haunting nightmares that won’t go away. But I’m a coward, and I’d rather face made up demons than the real ones that follow me wherever I go, lurking close behind the corner, hugging my breath as I sleep.

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I need to grow in the sunlight, but it’s only burned me and parched me.  I lack the courage and the chloroplasts. I wonder how they do it, all the trees and flowers, every blade of grass....

I envy them.

I envy them and their roots that dig deep in the ground they depend on, I envy that they take from the ground and the sky and how all they give comes back to them so they can stand up straight in their balancing act.

I’m wilted and titled and long have since been torn. I’ll just have to sit in the shade the sun never reaches and hope the dew that broke me will mend me some day. I’ll just have to feed off my own dreams and starve from my own nightmares and grow and shrivel among mushroom spores that only come and go, decompose.

Maybe I’ll be lifted off into the wind and be carried on the currents with bird wings and dandelions. Maybe I’ll be graceful enough for the angels to wipe their tears on me and cast my flaking skin to the horizon and back again. Maybe I won’t have a nightmare tonight when I fall asleep. Maybe I’ll see the sun. Maybe---

Maybe I’ll break down and split in two, after all, not every story can have a happy ending, but I figure that’s just the way the world works.