Camera Obscura

My childhood is trapped in a thick jelly 
of feelings I’ve tried to label.
I was petrified in front of the elephant and the tiger 

When she told me the hole in the plastic animal’s armour 
was for a thing called ‘mercy’. I found myself 
frozen, terrified of the word big - 

of the gap between the museum stairs 
threatening to suck me up, swirling like the sinkhole
in the bath. Or the pinhole in my old shoe box:

the relic of homework, a handmade camera obscura 
that could trap surroundings (or really just reflect them). 
I could never quite comprehend the way we see everything 

upside down. Like the great distortion that occurred
somewhere on the top floor, looking at all that malleable 
below-ness. On the stairs again I found myself

trapped in a paradox, terrified I’d never be big.
Looking up at statues, perpetually still lives
that can wobble a confectionary perspective.

Wishing they’d bend down when no one was looking
and whisper something just for me: don’t worry about the tiger’s mouth
or holes in armour or the sun that might not come in the morning.

Mercy comes as a gentle promise that someday, we can all be Gods.

Jane, 19, UK.