The World

When I was a little girl
The world was a little place
Filled with forts and Popsicles,
Worms and ghosts,
Boats on dry land and
A tree to shake in Morse code.

My life was naked in the arms of my mother
Yet the world turned out to be bigger than my backyard--
Filled with diversity and sorrow and anger and love.

But there was no place for me in this big world.
I couldn't cope.

Soon after an ecstatic climb to happiness
I fell apart--
It's always easy to fall when you climb high

But it was easy to love you. To hate you.
To hate me.
Alternately and simultaneously.

It's never the same, the world,
After that first great fall.