Growing Up

There would come a day when I stopped looking for shapes in the clouds.

When my parents stopped making the bed for me,

and my favorite color was green instead of blue.

The smell of gasoline doesn’t bother me anymore.

I can walk past a cemetery without holding my breath,

because I’m not afraid of the dead.

There would come a day when I started to notice the holes in my life,

Like weeds poking through cracks in a sidewalk.

I stopped sticking out my tongue for snowflakes in the winter.

I stopped being afraid of the dark.

There comes a day when we all see kaleidoscopes in our dreams.

Shifting from picture to picture like a color slideshow

So we can never hold on to just one.

We push the stuffed animals under our bed,

Promise to bring them out to play tomorrow

But we lied.

Instead comes another day of sitting, and watching, and wishing.

We stare at the changing patterns,

Grasping for a hint,

A clue,

Something to make our pain real.

And we wonder,

What will happen next?