When I was three years old, we moved to a big house

Which, as the years went by, got  smaller and smaller until

I couldn't stick my head in

Without gasping for air.

In the big kitchen I baked sugar cookies 

with my mom and my four years old hands.

I brought them to dad who was painting the walls 

with icing, with sugar so sweet in the house so big.

Until the sugar became sour and the house small.

I learned to tickle the strings of my dad’s immense cherry guitar

Which made such a sound I was afraid my ears would break 

If I played too hard.

We held it together as it was too immense and my hands too small and myself too scared.

Then when I didn’t need him to hold the guitar anymore as it had become too tiny and my hands too big and myself too brave,

I forgot how to play.

I used to hold his hand, the desert sand colored hand of the first boy I loved.

His hand shined so bright it could have been a star.

I was holding a star, under a blanket of silence.

My ten years old hand  trembled so much and as clever as a hand can be

She understood the beauty of holding hands. 

Far more beautiful than any kiss, 

on the mouth or on the cheek.

I said goodbye to his ebony eyes promising

I’ll never love someone who won’t hold hands. 

My mom used to have purple glasses 

That matched her purple hair,

That matched her purple book,

Which was too heavy for my seven years old hands to hold.

I remember thinking “one day I will read heavy purple books”.

Imagining myself as a sailor on the sea, as an astronaut on the moon

Holding the heavy book which wasn’t heavy anymore.

And now that I can finally read big, heavy, purple books

I feel my heart sink, I feel my heart fall

Whenever I understand a word.