I Was Buttercup

I’m alone. $1.75 in my pocket. Enough for one ticket to ride the Metro. Just one. Is this what it’s like when you grow up? Lonely? What happened to mommy driving, holding hands in the parking lot, listening to ABBA’s soundtrack? They say I am old enough. It’s true. I look it, I feel it, I’m capable. But then again, I don’t want it. I hear people saying they can’t wait for high school, but I’m still lost in the days I had naptime. I see kids, my age, doing things not meant for them, but for adults, and I can only ask why. I watch movies with my friends, I don’t understand the foreign words and actions, but meanwhile, a tape is rolling inside my mind. I see Caillou, Dragon Tales, The Powerpuff Girls. I was Buttercup.

If only I could close my eyes. My eyelids would open and mommy and daddy would look younger. Everything would look bigger. My shoulders would feel lighter. I wouldn’t feel alone. I would gallop around the house with rare enthusiasm, my stuffed animal bunny suffocating between my arm and my flushed cheek. I would find myself uninvitedly bundled in mommy and daddy’s covers, listening to her as she locked me in a trance of fairytale. A story captivating like my mommy. I would wait just around the corner, listening for daddy’s footsteps against the laundry room tile, and at the right moment, I would propel myself into his arms, inhaling the smell of his cologne. A scent strong like my daddy. My eyes would eventually open.

I’m alone again. I’m stepping into the isolated tube. I don’t know where this will take me. Where I will take me. I can do it, I feel it. I can do it, I am capable. Yes, I can do it, but I don’t want it.

~ Sophie T.