Too Much Crying

 Everything used to be big when I was small, or maybe it was just that it was the same size and I was shorter. Sometimes I have vague memories of a hallway that I no longer know, each step tall enough that I had to lift my leg high up to my waist to climb up them. There was someone waiting at the top for me, a nondescript figure in brown heels. The ones that look like they have a T going across them. With each step that I take up the stairs, her mouth moves. I can’t comprehend that she is talking to me.

Colorful paint has been put on all of my fingers by a tall lady, who probably isn’t that old but she’s so much taller than me that I can’t see the top of her. Taller than the highest tower that I can build out of blocks, taller than me until they go falling down. It was hard work to build that tower of blocks, and I cried when they fell down. I didn’t like seeing my tower fall down. 

Just like when the tall lady puts the paint on my hand, I start to cry because it is cold. I don’t like how it is cold, and I want it off. I let out a scream, and then a loud scream, but nobody listens. They go back to the books and the blocks, and the lady who painted my hand grabs my wrist as I start wiping the paint on my skirt. She says some words that I don’t know, and she paints my hand again. The handprints go on a pretty pink sheet of paper, like the ones that daddy uses to make paper animals. I jump out of the yellow chair at the table, and it makes a big sound when it falls. The paints hurt my hand, and the sound hurt my ears.

 I climb into the cubby with my backpack and cover my ears. It’s all loud, too loud. I want to go home, where the loudest sound is me or my fire truck that I got on C-a-r-e-e-r D-a-y. I scream and scream for my mommy, and when the tall lady tries to reach me, I kick her. My pink shoe hits her in the face, and she calls my mommy. When mommy comes, she puts me in the car seat. She says my name, Poppy, and “stop crying” as we go home. 

I go back to daycare and the tall lady is gone. The new lady has chocolate skin and says the tall lady isn’t coming back because of me. Mommy says the tall lady didn’t know how to handle me.

Mommy says I’m wild. But the other kids are running and crying. Am I not supposed to break the crayons?