Pom-Pom Hand Grenades

She had a bad case of the growing pains, and still does now that I think about it. It feels like yesterday, back when we were still bunking beds and putting ice cubes down Maya’s pj’s, that I was desperate to ease her pain as she howled into the night and kept me awake feeling like I had to do something for her. I gave her the only pills I could find and tried to hide my discern when I remembered that she was little and Daddy’s medicine cabinet was not. So I crawled into her bed, with my hand on her heart and waited for her spring of life to warm my worry. I’ve forever since been a reader of warnings, protective of my shadow girl, too untrusting of the world and unaware at the time that, when I grow…she grows. Our greatest adventures were spent on our tiptoes. We spoke in feline tongues, nuzzled our noses in cold-cuts, in plastic bowls, and hoarded our treasures in snap-shut purses, playing Barbie doll charades, ghetto fab dress up games, and searching for sun rocks, Ponchatula summer, backwards slumber parties that seemed to span across the miles of disconnect and stay inside our hearts even after I’d left. She was the first infant I’d ever held, and as the years took hold of me and pried my limbs from youth, I bent over backwards to keep one arm around her so she couldn’t grow too soon. I didn’t want her to miss the fervor of first kisses or forget the saccharin scent of old perfumes and daddy’s shaving cream, or dismiss her younger siblings when they ask the meaning of eyebrow plucking, french kissing, or help transitioning from Playtex to Tampax. I never wanted her to feel the weight of waking up alone, or drown in empty promises, to know that home is where the heart is, and that innocence she can’t get back, that the cracks in her foundation would only chip more, and that love- it’s priceless, sex is dangerous, and life is short. Moments are but fleeting before they’re lost in backwards time and you find out eventually that hearts are blind, home is a house you can barely recall, and your reflection is suddenly not the same. It’s like she’s trying so hard to win this tug-of-war game, to play with the big kids, but her heart is hanging on steadfast to the last moments of freedom, no consequence. On the fence about who she thinks she’s supposed to be, stuck in the narrow in-between of unaccountable naivety and taking herself a little too seriously. The sinless proclivity for falling in love, bi-weekly, when at twenty, I’m still entirely unsure of what that even means, and the ability to be blasé about breaking someone’s heart, like a callow disregard for human destruction. The minds of children are remarkable, impressionable, prone to bruising and breaking. So when I look at you, baby sister, and I see pom-pom hand grenades and words of steel, try to understand why I feel how I do, why it scares me to see you running to catch up. I still got a few good inches but let’s face it, I’m an A-cup. It won’t be long before you’re towering over me and I start adopting your hand-me-down bras. Understand, most of all, that I’ve worn the same shoes as you -though perhaps not as cute- but I’ve seen through your eyes with vision as foggy, and felt the weight of the world pressing down just as heavy. I’ve had growing pains from behind my knees, to the palms of my hands held by boys who “loved” me, to the white knight conscience that told me, “It’s not your fault,” into the deepest end of my half-missing heart. And for the life of what’s left of me, I refuse to stop listening for the sound of your heartbeat or the shadow girl that spoke to me when we were just kids.