This T-Shirt

ttto "This Shirt" by Mary Chapin Carpenter

This shirt is old and faded
Half a letter washed away
I've had it for so long now
I count the years back anyway
I don't wear it very often
I don't much like light blue
But when I look upon it
I see who I was when it was new.

This shirt is from a concert
Got reversed dates on the back
The front a silly picture
Of a train upon a track
Characters from Carroll
Make their final farewells here
Who'd have known the band would come back
And play for us year after year.

This t-shirt was a gift
To you, the man that I would wed
You scolded the friend who gave it
When you the sizing label read
I should have known I'd be unhappy
With a rude, unhappy soul
Yet at the time, I truly loved you
I thought that I could make you whole.

I look at the girl I was then
So serious and innocent
So convinced I wouldn't find love
Our meeting just seemed heaven-sent
Older so you must be wiser
And yet you could be silly too
How could I know you'd never grown up
And never learned to look outside of you.

So many years we spent together
I look at them and shake my head
I learned to lie and hide my feelings
Stealing away from the home I'd dread
And when I finally escaped you
And the marriage trapping me
This T-shirt wrapped my trinkets
Keeping them as safe as they could be.

This shirt has become a symbol
Of how my growth was stunted then
I've grown out of the T-shirt
I've grown out of mistrusting men
It's time to pass along this t-shirt
To raise some funds for charity
I'll try to not repeat my errors
And simply go on learning to be me.

copyright 2001 Rachel S. Silverman