when we were very young—
i was a monster
and you were a monster
and together we picked flowers
and we didn’t know that monsters
weren’t allowed in the gardens

when we first became monsters
we celebrated with balloons
but now i wonder if the balloons
were begging to be let go of
and if maybe they found a better home
in the sky than in our hands

and after a while
once we’d gotten used to being monsters
we folded paper into birds and named each one
after all the reasons why we weren’t monsters
but then all the reasons why we were