Grownups

When you invite your friends over
for dinner or a beer
I feel like a little girl
squeezing into your world;
forcing a place for myself at the
grownup table over Thanksgiving dinner,
eavesdropping on your grownup conversations-
things I don't understand.

And when you look at me
I just smile a small smile
and look down at my small hands, crossed
demurely in my lap.

When you ask me one of your
grownup questions
and I see your friends looking expectantly at me
I experience a surreal sort of
quiet panic attack.
I choose the shortest
most vague response.

And this beer in my hand seems wrong;
I am not a grownup.
I am still a little girl
dreaming silly dreams more often than I
pay attention to grownup conversations,
still obsessed and infatuated by
the realm of fantasy
despite that my body has grown up
and that you look at me in exasperation,
and that your friends whisper and
shake their heads in disapproval;
despite that I know better.

Somewhere I know better.

Deep in my heart,
past childhood relics and demigods
past the analog televisions and
cherry Popsicles
a tumor blooms inside me,
budding image of the thing that grows in you
and your friends
-the grownup world
and all I shy away from.