i entered a room i haven't been to since forever
suddenly it was smaller than i had remembered it to be—
wasn't it just yesterday when i was ten years old,
neck painful from looking up at the ceiling that was too tall for me to reach
and wishing i could swing from the chandeliers that hung from them like vines?
and now i'm suddenly seventeen,
caught between here and there
the rooms i know seem much smaller
and suddenly i don't need help
in reaching for things from the cupboard
in fact, i no longer need help for a lot of things
but why do i feel more helpless than before?
why do i just want to go back to when
rooms seemed much bigger
and i could easily hide in closets
whenever i wanted to be alone?
now i'm seventeen
and i can't ever be alone when i want to;
i'm caught in between here and there
but the problem is
i don't know what "here" and "there" is anymore