Time-Out

There’s a little girl I know,
never the same age two days in a row,
and all she wants
is to color and nap.

I hide her away most days:
she takes up too much time.
So I keep her in her room
with her pink unicorn toy
and muted cartoons.

She’ll tell you that she’s in charge,
that she keeps me in my room
with my textbooks and ‘grown-up glasses’
so she can sit and play.

When she comes out
I can dream again.
The kind with happiness and light
instead of the darkness
that clouds my mind most nights. 

Sometimes I let her out,
when I’m overwhelmed
or punching walls,
so she can calm me down
and pull her dreamy haze over my bloodshot eyes.

I always lock her up again
once I’ve cooled off.I hear her crying in her room
and feel the unicorn fall to the floor.

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Chaya Chudasama is a creative writing and gender studies student currently earning her bachelor’s degree at Southern Oregon University. She writes stories about queer women of color and poems about mental health and any other random thing she can come up with.