it's such a big thing.

growing up
is such a big thing & in
8th grade we were all 
busy undoing the love
we had drank from juice boxes--
it was a race to 
become humans-- 
& it's such
a big thing to feel yourself
growing so much smaller in 
such a short period of time--
in 8th grade we read poetry
from the holocaust 
& sometimes
a body was a paper clip &
it's such  a big thing
& in 8th grade we took another
class on american history
where not all the slave-owners 
were bad & 
it was still inevitable 
that the bomb would fall on hiroshima
& nagasaki
& it's such a big thing--
it's such a big thing
to drop a bomb from the
ledge of a gray desk--
it's such a big thing to
grow up in a cement brick full
of pink tongue & tile--
it's such a big thing 
to undress
in the girl's locker room
& feel like crawling into
the navy blue metal locker
to escape the movement of your 
own legs-- 
it's such a big thing to become
so small in such a short period of
time &
in 8th grade we all had boyfriends
in homeroom even if it only
meant sitting across from each
other at the gray desks &
it's such a big thing to be wanted--
it's such a big thing to 
be changing--
in 8th grade 
i took off 50 pounds of my
own skin to try to become
a smaller human but i only
enlarged to the size of the 
hallway-- the windows
could never have held me--
i'm such a big thing now &
we thought we would become something
but we would become changing &
we wore paper clips as 
an apology to the holocaust
poets-- some with empty
mouth biographies--
it's such a big thing to 
figure out how wide we are
when we become a word--
in 8th grade i started & stopped
a journal at least twelve times--
none it makes any sense
but all my poetry is too
sad to share with anyone now--
i wrote about brownies & wanting
to be a human & wanting
to change into something
other than a moth & wanting
drop myself like a bomb from
the window
outside the biology room
in 8th grade
we were so old & we
knew everything about the future
& becoming a mountain--
in 8th grade we dropped the bomb again--
i snapped a blue lunch tray
to trade it for a hallway of a body--
walk through it with be & 
i'm such a big thing--
i'm such a big thing that i haven't
stopped walking through myself 
i'm such a big thing that i can 
neglect my one single duty which is 
to become a human--
in 8th grade i crawled out 
into my locker--
i folded like a paper clip--
i apologized for everyone
who had never been apologized to
but it didn't help me become
any smaller--
i am i am i am
such a big thing--