Smallness

A sort-of poem

Photo by Justin Dream on Unsplash

I wish I could hide in my smallness.
I want to curl in on myself.
Like the mimosa pudica,
I retreat inward.

When I was young,
they called me a slip of a girl
for the way I could disappear.
Like a coin between a magician’s fingers.
My sleight of hand
you could never see.

— The Liminal Little Lady —
the marquee would read.
One night only.
Watch closely.
As I vanish into thin air.
One,
Two,
Three…
She’s gone!

The crowd murmurs, dissolving at my disappointing spectacle.
The curtains are drawn, and I am nowhere to be found.
Poison ivy climbs the drapes,
keeping them tightly closed.
The vines are rooted in a heart
that’s been hurt too many times to seek out the sun again.
So I keep the cloth drawn close.
An infinite cocoon of my own making.