When you claim to not be a child, it's like

Saying you can breath underwater or see through walls:

Only a child thinks that.

But to say an adult cannot be a child

That would be to choke on that water you claimed to breathe

 

I felt like an adult when my mother's words didn't match me anymore--

When I thought better things than her and "applied" for things:

Schools, jobs, money, apartments, programs.

I felt like an adult, putting my own food on my own table--

A table given to me by my mother, with food I cooked like she did.

 

I felt like an adult when I forgot about home and who was still there.

I would come back and lose that feeling, thinking I was in high school

Again.

Mom would still be telling me what to do and my siblings had the same names

I don't know what I expected to be different--maybe myself.

 

I felt like a kid--like a child who didn't know how the world works--

In my senior year in college, after my neighbor's cat, Stache, died.

He had lung cancer I didn't know about--I just found him on the door step

Weezing harder, lethargic, and grey. 

He lasted three more days until he was put down and gone.

 

I felt like a kid, expecting to see Stache waiting at the apartment door,

Expecting food, love, and caring from one of his care providers.

Instead, the mat was empty and he wouldn't come back.

I felt like a kid, too stupid to understand a simple truth

And all I could think was "what should I have done?"

 

For one, I could have not lied and said I was still a kid.