I used to scratch my arms so much
that I would bleed,
Incidentally, when I'm feeling small
my arms get really itchy.
But I just crossed an ocean
on a jet-plane that fit
hundreds of me's.
And I didn't feel small.
I saw monuments that you
can see from space,
I walked over cobblestones
of the eternal city,
seeing the span of time
outstretch through my every day,
I ate food that
traveled millennia to arrive in my stomach,
And I didn't feel small.
Contrarily,
I felt the tiber plowing through
my wine-colored waterways,
My shoulders adapted their posture
to the lean of the Singelgracht,
I stared Vesuvius in the eye,
standing upon its ashen stillborn city.
Yet the itch never
came. Flying back
To my little pond, I wondered
If there would be enough room to
Fit the new me.
And step by step,
I tip-toed back to the bed
I thought had been left
Untouched in my absence.
But when I laid my head down,
I turned into Alice,
Drowning in my sheets,
They had gone back to my pillows,
And invited a stranger in,
Stretching out my space to where
Only they could fill it just right.
And now I’m small enough to see
Bed bugs, nibbling their way up
And down my shrunken arms.
I ponder over the possibilities
Of charms being mixed in with
Grapes, aged with cheese,
Deliciously tricking me into
Believing all of this was good
For a growing girl.
As I call up to the giants
Who used to be my height,
I recognize they can only hear me
Via echoes, a subdued volume
Of my former cries.
Only being as small as a pest,
Can I see how the molecules of
Matter really do shift,
A best friend can
Neither be created
nor destroyed,
Only moved about, shifted
From one sleep-mate
To another.
I sit with the bed bugs
I do not itch anymore,
I am the itch.