(no subject)
petite was the word they chose. i'm sure using an exotic sounding word makes the concept of not measuring up more palatable.
the pediatrician's office was stark and smelled like someone ran around and sprinkled baby powder all over each night. they had paid someone over a decade ago, when the shopping plaza was built, to paint a mural of some random supposedly child soothing image. the biggest thing i remember is the chalkboard and how we all fought over the small strips of chalk and real estate on the green plastic, vying for a chance to leave our mark.
meetings with the doctor would surround one thing: charts. it was all about the percentile. what percentile was my height in? my weight? why was i only growing horizontally?
i'd become a little dot made by his ballpoint pen lost in a sea of axis's and bell curves. i wanted to be closer to the top of the mountain. the doctor and my mother would sit over me and frown at my location. so far from the other dots. if i kept growing i'd fall off the page and out of the folder and onto the floor. i'd blend in with those specks of sparkly metal embedded in the linoleum. maybe that's the graveyard for everyone else who doesn't belong on the mountain.
you could hear babies crying in other rooms. bells of immunization chiming throughout the city of wax and powder. in the lobby they'd stare at that tiny tv, and fight over the chalkboard. and inside, past the big red door with the knob you couldn't reach, i was falling to the graveyard.
we got up to leave and i scooted myself off of the too-tall paper covered chair. my feet had been dangling.
my feet are dragging. now they use the word petite. the ends of my too-tall jeans are tattered and sinking to the ground. dragging past the the other specks. petite.
as we grow in numbers, we take the time to equalize and reach the top of the mountain. we shrink ourselves horizontally. in fact, it's a booming industry. we bend our shapes and selves to get up in the curve of everyone else fighting to leave their mark.
not me, because the ends of my jeans grip tight to the ground. they skid the surface, slowing me down. for me, they keep using the word petite. as if to perpetually remind me that i'm still a speck on the floor.
the pediatrician's office was stark and smelled like someone ran around and sprinkled baby powder all over each night. they had paid someone over a decade ago, when the shopping plaza was built, to paint a mural of some random supposedly child soothing image. the biggest thing i remember is the chalkboard and how we all fought over the small strips of chalk and real estate on the green plastic, vying for a chance to leave our mark.
meetings with the doctor would surround one thing: charts. it was all about the percentile. what percentile was my height in? my weight? why was i only growing horizontally?
i'd become a little dot made by his ballpoint pen lost in a sea of axis's and bell curves. i wanted to be closer to the top of the mountain. the doctor and my mother would sit over me and frown at my location. so far from the other dots. if i kept growing i'd fall off the page and out of the folder and onto the floor. i'd blend in with those specks of sparkly metal embedded in the linoleum. maybe that's the graveyard for everyone else who doesn't belong on the mountain.
you could hear babies crying in other rooms. bells of immunization chiming throughout the city of wax and powder. in the lobby they'd stare at that tiny tv, and fight over the chalkboard. and inside, past the big red door with the knob you couldn't reach, i was falling to the graveyard.
we got up to leave and i scooted myself off of the too-tall paper covered chair. my feet had been dangling.
my feet are dragging. now they use the word petite. the ends of my too-tall jeans are tattered and sinking to the ground. dragging past the the other specks. petite.
as we grow in numbers, we take the time to equalize and reach the top of the mountain. we shrink ourselves horizontally. in fact, it's a booming industry. we bend our shapes and selves to get up in the curve of everyone else fighting to leave their mark.
not me, because the ends of my jeans grip tight to the ground. they skid the surface, slowing me down. for me, they keep using the word petite. as if to perpetually remind me that i'm still a speck on the floor.