FREE VERSE Poem: Outrgrown, by Sophia Chamberlin

Dark and plushy,
a cushion too large
for my little legs.
No more hard, brightly-colored plastic.

Ceramic plates, glass cups:
settings fit for a king.
A fork too big for my hand,
but felt just right.

I am an adult now;
matured like the fancy cheese
on my grown-up pizza.

Tell me, what did you think of the presidential debate?
What an aristocratic bureaucracy!
the adult conversations that I had heard,
from my old seat.
They were mine now.

But up close,
they sound different:
like when you say a word too many times,
and it starts to sound funny.

They put red velvet ropes around museum paintings,
because if you get too close,
you can see the tiny bumps of the canvas
under its smooth, acrylic facade.

There was no aristocratic bureaucracy
or presidential debates.
There were fake smiles,
cheery lies,
worse truths.

And suddenly,
the fork was just too big.
Glass cups and ceramic plates,
too fragile.

I want regular cheese pizza,
and aristocratic bureaucracy
and settings fit for a jester.

But my legs are too big
for hard, brightly-colored plastic.

I push and I squeeze,
trying to fit into the past,
to how things used to be.
I try to stow away,
on a ship that has already
sailed.

But there is no going back,
my knees are too high,
my legs too crunched,
I don’t fit,
at the kids table.