Outgrew

I wear my favourite t-shirt

It hugs me yet it hurts

I’m afraid my body changed

Worse—

I’m scared it feels estranged

It used to fall around me softly,

like it remembered my shape

Now it clings too tightly

Worryingly gripping my nape

The collar crawls up my throat

Demanding to silence me

The sleeves restrict my arm,

My growth has could not set me free

Still not enough to steal my breath,

This tshirt rests against my chest

Just enough to remind me of it

And never quite let me rest

And I sit there brooding

About what I did wrong

I grew so large that I don’t fit the cage

Help, am afraid we no longer belong

Deeply invested in its woven threads

Mistaking release for abandonment

I tell myself - I will shrink again

To earn its quiet consent

My mother looks at my struggles with care,

“Beta,” she says, “you grew up and behold

This isn’t a moment of despair

Clothes are supposed to stop fitting

Trends are supposed to fade

Don’t spend your life

trying to change yourself for something

When it was meant to belong to your older shade”