i can't go back

by Linda M. Crate

ingrid michaelson
plays
on the radio
while i pace the apartment
like a wild animal
i am caged
yearning for freedom
and yet
it is inappropriate for me to
go outside
only in my underwear
braless
i would be arrested for indecent exposure,
but somehow
it's okay for the grossly obese man
with his five hundred pound
hairy pot belly
to sit out in his underwear
on a hot summer's
day;
i don't understand how that's not the same
his boobs are probably
bigger than mine—
life isn't fair, they say, but somehow
that excuse never worked
for me;
i'm sick of all the hypocrisy of
everything
just want to be a child again
when dandelions
danced their visions over me and trees
laughed in the breeze
so sweetly,
and i dreamed without
fear of falling—
where i wasn't caged in all this want
and desire
with conundrums on my tongue
simply ran outside
played in the weeds, spoke to faeries
and waved to mermaids
in their blue green lagoons
oh!
how we all wish to grow older as a child,
but we don't realize how good
we had it
until it's gone.