Hero Image
Original Prose by Johnny Allen

To Feel So Small (Hello Me, It's Me Again)

I feel so small,
In a good way, mostly,
Like, this world is so impossibly big.
It beggars the imagination.
To be sure, but,
it makes me feel like my worries are small too.
I feel so lost in its immensity that nothing much can trouble me.

I am staggered by it.
I slow down and then stop.
I think that this moment, right now,
is not one moment but many.
Time is so granular and
we get these moments of awareness in it,
in the grains of it. And there is beauty in the world.
A rare and arresting beauty
that beggars all comprehension.

It mocks arrogance with a native complexity.
A thing you thought you knew.
Something you’d set aside as if it was finished.
Its dimensions multiplied.
Fractured.
Fragmented.
Dissolved.

The thing came back to haunt and humble you.
And so you did the only thing you could do.
Get lost in it.
Submit to it.
Cry.

Lyrics

I was a dirt road kid
Happy that you were my friend
You never judged me for being a weirdo
Or for anything that I did
(for anything that I did)
Hello me, it's me again
I can't remember what it's like

To feel so small
But in a good way, mostly
In this world
That's so impossibly big
To feel beauty that's rare and beyond comprehending
To be sure
To get lost in it

Your tail was broken
You were always so scared
And you saw it all fall apart
My bed used to be on the floor of my room
And you'd lay down right next to my heart
Hello me, it's me again
I can't remember what it's like

To feel so small
But in a good way, mostly
In this world
That's so impossibly big
To feel beauty that's rare and beyond comprehending
To be sure
To get lost in it

I walked through the door
With you in my arms
Happy that you were my friend
Your eyes were so tired
Your face so gray
I held your hand as you faded away
Hello me, it's me again
I'm having a hard time tonight

You looked so small
In a box for a sweater
XL from a store in the mall
Your eyes, they don't close
When you lay down forever
And I hope God can find a place for you