Overgrown Baby Kayla Berry

I am a big baby. A baby in Doc Martens, a baby who wears lipstick occasionally and, maybe, smokes a roll up every now and then. I am crawling and stomping, wide eyed and curious, absolutely clueless and inevitably heading for danger. There’s no safetyproof corners in life, no soft rubber barrier stopping my head from smashing straight into a sharp edge. Blood, bruises, a brutal truth. Let me indulge in fairy tales my whole child life. Let me believe in heroes and princes and true love, then teach me feminist theory in college. Prince Charming is a swipe on my screen, swearing he’s 6ft and I, for the first time, understand the villain.

I am a two decade old toddler. I cry more than a normal toddler because my pain is worse than a grazed knee or a raised voice. I’m a toddler who has strong political beliefs and a hopeless perception of love and an airfryer. I have an airfryer. Those pre-adulthood songs I’d listen to, looking out the window on the way to school whilst romanticizing life outside, safety proof corners. I’d be the girl, in a city, who did politics and pessimism and cooking. I thought I knew everything then but, I know I know nothing now. Nothing about politics or love or how to use an oven.

I am a fetus in a new womb. A womb with dating apps, accountability and responsibility. I am a fetus who must feed themself through an umbilical cord of experience and mistakes and air-fried food. I’ll cry in the stomach of a city, kicking the walls of a suffocated apartment and float into thoughts I’ve never had before. Thoughts of predictable uncertainty, potential failure and what the fuck do I do now. Thinking back to if I was too loud, too quiet, too upfront, a bit rude. Worse, I’m starting to get forehead wrinkles and I need to moisturize more often because princesses don’t have dry skin.

But this isn’t a fairy tale, this is adulthood. The knowing of knowing nothing. You’re pushed out the vagina of reality, forced to start anew all over again. I am a big baby. A big baby in a city with no safety proof corners heading straight for a head injury. I’m going to fall and I’m going to bleed this time. Welcome to the world — it’s dangerous!