Day Thirty: Endings and Beginnings

GROWING TOO FAST
 
The three year old boy moved
from the toddler room, where
he had spent almost all of his life,
to the preschool room, where the kids
were bigger and tougher.
They tripped him and pinched him,
called him a baby,
and snatched food from his plate at snack time.
Barely out of diapers, he had to wait
in long lines of obscenely squirming bodies
for a chance at the toilet,
which all of them forgot to flush.
At nap time, he cried quietly,
but the teachers were rubbing the backs
of the children who made the most fuss,
leaving him to fend for himself.
Sometimes he looked out the back door
at his old companions in the toddler yard,
climbing on a small, friendly play structure
with rubber mats securely fastened to the bottom,
and he longed to return there,
to laugh with his friends
and eat Goldfish from tiny paper cups.
He felt certain he could go
if he could just figure out a way
to ask nicely enough--
but the teacher always said,
“No. You can't ever go back.”