i'm (more than) right next to you

I know I'm not going to get, ever get, so very much higher and taller. I know that my body, elbows nobbled and knees knocking, is basically shaped the way that it will always be.

The dexterity in my hands, which I praise and covet, has already approached its most significant maximum on a parabola of infinite elasticity. The sharpness of my haircut, tapered and windowed to skin, has already been tested and tried; thoroughly mulled over.

I only have control of change for my mind, in terms of leaps and bounds. In fact, my mind is unbounded. I've only been coiling, a tighter and brighter spring.

With time as space that I can gauge, I can reach one arm into the past and the other into the future.

I can pull myself together. I can bring myself up.

On the brink of contagion, my flickering, candle-lit smirk. My eyebrows dance, wiggle and wave. Pinned into the pit of my stomach, nauseau propels me forward.

With love and care for the desperate ad-hoc mechanisms of the prior fight, I engineer ever more grace in my revolutions. I dream and I decide.

No longer am I so scattered and self-effacing. No deeper will I hide. Indeed, I now refuse to shock the monkey.

My form is short, burning an unassailable trail between me and you - but we're not so far, we're not so disconnected.

I owe it to the you of then and the me of now. I can say it clearer. I can say it with my full voice elected from my chest.

This is what I want. This is what you have inspired in me. I have prepared the truth in a simple, honest suit, well-cut and flattering for all onlookers.

It is quiet and serious work, to consider the self and the other. These are sobering butterflies. These are gratifying goosebumps on whims.

There's no way out but growing up, I think - and when we do it, we do it so well.