I loathe knowing that I’m getting older, that times are changing.
That I won’t be the same person I was last week, and I won’t be the same person I was five seconds ago.
And you won’t be either.
We’ve known forward, we’ve known backward—but what of now?
Of our propelling into it, hoping we’d maybe, just maybe, make it out just right on the other side?
Blindly balancing on a beam, a blindfold covering our terrified eyes—our hands outstretched into the hope we hold so close in our hearts.
That hope that the uncertainty of tomorrow will surmount to the greatness we thought our future would be.
Time will keep going— with or without us.

To want more than you’re given,
To see more than you can reach,
To love with no place to put it.
But most of what surrounds you can’t or won’t meet you there.
That mismatch?
That’s the curse.

sadness comes in droplets.
from the sky, from your eyes, they fall.
over and over, time and time again.
wetting the ground, streaking your face
until a puddle grows into a sea.

Somehow, in these dark hours, it feels all the more comfortable to profess all the wrongs in my life to you.
The dark sneaks up on us and pats our shoulders, enveloping our fears and complications— choking them out with a simple grace of its non-existence.
Secrets don’t  echo so loudly in its embrace.
Words slip out in pure darkness, our eyes focused on exactly nothing, our ears only working to hear the steady breath of one another— a reassurance that we’re both here, indefinitely attending to our late-night ramblings.
It’s such a dream,
that,
these words that hold such great meaning are now flooded into the ears of you sitting right beside me.
And instead of ignoring me, you listen.

You tell me my hair is horrid—wretched, too different from everyone else.
You call me names and mock me endlessly for something I was born with—
Something I never even had a choice over.
It was a crime sentenced to me before I was given the chance to choose between peace and uncertainty within myself.

But when I try to change it,
You turn around and lie through your lips and teeth—
Telling me it’s gorgeous, that I shouldn’t change it,
That it’s unique and different, that it unequivocally embodies who I am.

Who am I supposed to believe,
When all you do is give me mixed signals?

I often wonder what birds are thinking.
Why they decided that this patch of grass they’re inspecting isn’t as good as that one over there.
So they pivot.
Flap their wings away.
I wonder why they’re so free— so willing to exist in a world that offers no reprieve.
Why they’re offered a life without chains— the freedom to be anywhere, in any which way.