“Two months in and all you know
is your new medication
makes your hands shake.
Twenty-four years old,
and you’re finally starting to understand
that calling a place home
doesn’t make it feel like one.
Yesterday, you learned how to change a tire, but
you still don’t know
how to love someone without
cracking your ribs open
and spilling through the fault lines,
like some kind of natural disaster.
You’re pretending if you keep laughing
you won’t have to admit
you’re afraid;
pretending like love’s gonna
solve all your problems;
pretending you’ve got it all together
when you don’t have it at all.
You have made so much
out of so little–
you built yourself tall
on the backs of every person
who told you you couldn’t.
You flew your colors in a war zone–
made it back wounded and alive.
You have done everything you know how,
and it means something
to have tried.”
— Twenty-Four