Now I Am Six
by Diehsarr
…I can think whatever I like to think,
I can play whatever I like to play,
I can laugh whatever I like to laugh,
There’s nobody here but me.
I’m talking to a rabbit…
I’m talking to the sun…
– ”In the Dark” by A.A. Milne
There’s a book of poetry that I have.
It sits at the lowest part of my make-shift bookshelf.
It’s blue and small.
There is a pattern of bees on the border,
Or it could be flies. I can’t tell which it is.
I stole it one afternoon from my teacher, when I was in grade four
Because I had to go home and I hadn’t finished reading it.
I was alone at the time, when I first picked it up.
I sat in the left corner of the classroom, near the back, at my desk.
I remember how I paid little attention to everyone clearing out.
I never noticed my surroundings; I paid attention to the book.
Yet now I can remember the empty desks around me, the light shifting as people walked by,
The walls of the classroom and the whir of the fans.
I was entranced then
By the children in the book, the bad Jane and the two friends,
By the drawings of the buttercup field and raindrops on flies.
I never really understood, but the man who was a boy interested me too.
I rarely read the book now, because I save it for special occasions.
Whenever I read it, it’s the same as when I read it then. And sometimes I want that feeling.
It’s hard to get that simplicity in other places.
But I find it there.
