Purgatory (circular poem)

I used to think adults knew everything

A diligent pupil 

I absorbed every whisper of knowledge

My parents intended or didn’t intend 

To blow at me

Tall were my problems

But grownups were taller

Like an umbrella, they could shade me 

From all droplets of acid rain

And nothing in this world 

Could possibly be ambiguous

What does it even mean

When we utter the word “unknown”

What does it even mean?

When we say in a few months

A spike will plateau

What does it even mean?

When we say in a few months

An injection will save us all

What does it even mean?

When I bend down

Eye-level with a two-year-old

Asking me “how much longer”

And I don’t know how to respond

and

I used to think adults knew everything