first semester, i read and wrote and p-setted, claimed dual residency

in forbes and ncw so i could eat until my mouth and stomach begged “no

more,” got home everyday to lovely humans who never fail to make me

laugh and that hasn’t changed since second semester. but second semester,

i’m wearing weighted blankets

 

i lay crying for a lovely human to rock me so i keep baby talking about wearing

weighted blankets. and they use their grownup voice to comfort me, understand that

our floor’s common room is my crib. where my five-foot-nothing self can hide.

not that somebody’s out to get me. it’s so i don’t have to think about being lonely

at night. lovely humans eating wawa, talking, playing debatable — the best

distractions in the world, keeping the grownups and babies together. (and what a

delight to be a grown up for a few hours, with nobody judging me as too young to be

lonely at such a social age). separate am i when i’m forced into a big kid bed, but the

thought doesn’t come and go. it deafens my cries, because nobody seems to care that

i’m mourning the loss of my crib. they want me to stop cold turkey like a baby sucking

on a pacifier. the ultimate self-soothing test, they say. it’ll be fun, they say.

not when i’m wearing weighted blankets

 

and yet wearing weighted blankets is a pacifier. i may waste precious sucks trying to be

taken seriously by grown ups judging me for being lonely at such a social age.

well what if i stay separate from everybody so i’m not a bother? i can sleep a lot

to escape under my blue led lights. the best color for crying. any other color and

i’ll believe they’re judging me, too. if my stuffies are the only ones checking on me,

so be it. at least they listen to me every episode, as i lay drained but time doesn’t stop.

i must use energy i don’t have to keep reading and writing and p-setting

or else my professors will see through my bubbly disguise.

how am i not barely functioning yet?

out my crib i go, wearing weighted blankets