Poem: In the Basement Dreaming of Growing Up

Down the the basement is a girl
Who is figuring out her world
Watching her twin in the mirror
Move as she moves slowly like
Sugar sweet syrup on a cold day
Leaning into her reflection before
Falling away onto a bed made up
For a girl of about eleven all pink
Bow ties and unicorns boybands
On the ceiling look down as her
Looking up knowing there’s blue
Skies beyond the egg white above
Wishing she could fly up and out
Of here to anywhere she wasn’t 
Trying to escape that little girl
Into the once forbidden territory
Of womanhood that’s elusive
As trying to stretch to grow bigger
Making her think of Alice in her
Wonderland with pills to make
You bigger or smaller when change
Is so easy it’s just a choice to
Change or not change why can’t
She change if it’s that easy is it
That easy and maybe that’s why
Nothing changes here is she tries
Too hard to change to fit into shapes
And moods that everyone wants that
Please nobody not even herself and
She buries her face in lily white pillows
Crying because everyday is the same
Twenty-four going on fourteen always
Staying the same no matter how much
She wishes she could be anyone else
Which is the key keeping herself locked
In the same places she’s always been 

---

I wrote this poem and then worked in the word of the day from Cyranny’s Cove–“Forbidden.”

---

Copyright © 2021 TJS Sherman All rights reserved.