pair of jeans, early-aughts-Renaissance-style corset top, grey military blazer that’s been making me look cooler than I am since the twelfth grade

no longer fits is always met with denial. I squeeze my shoulders into the armpits, loosen ties, hold my breath, limit the constricting garment

to morning outings, change back into sweats after my second meal, when the buckle can no longer contain my hunger. A few more tries before I tuck it back

into my closet for safekeeping, so sure I’ll fit into it again someday. Sometimes it takes a year for someday to never come. Sometimes five. Sometimes longer,

knowing it will never gracefully adorn me again, but maybe a keepsake, maybe I’ll learn to sew, repurpose lace and linen into a decorative pillow.

They all meet the same end. A solemn disrobing off hanger, unpetaling from a high shelf. I fold it with the care of an heirloom, same delicacy

it once draped my bones with. Lay them in a paper bag of acceptance like lowering a loved one to rest in an other world, where they will become everything to someone else.

Prompts used (tags are the poets’ IG handles):

@rosepapercastles - “the moment I realized I had outgrown . . .”