This is the last poem I'll ever write as a 19 year old
I don't know if I should summarize the years I have spent
Or talk about the future and what lies ahead.
It's not easy to write anymore.
Words, they just keep slipping
like the string of a helium balloon
that I always jumped to hold, as a kid
but it would always fly away
just after touching the tips of my fingers
making me realize that I was almost there.
Almost.
Almost but never really there.
And I'd look at the balloon flying away
slowly turning into a dot
before forever being a part of the sky
And I'd wonder. I'd always wonder if I could just
let go of my strings one day
and fly away....
Would I be able to escape this place?
Would I be able to reunite with the balloon someday?
But little did I know that
letting go wasn't so easy.
It was much more than opening your fingers
and letting it fly away with the wind.
The strings which held me down were
wrapped around my finger tightly
you know, like we used to tie a rubber band
around our fingers just to stop the blood
from flowing in our veins and making our skin red.
It was just like that.
And letting the strings go meant
letting them cut through my skin
and leave marks
as a reminder that I once held onto something
or someone
too strongly between my fingers (and in my heart).

So I sit here now as I remember it all in my head
trying to decide what to share with my pen.
Not sure if this time would matter or not
as I whisper under my breath,
"Almost there, almost"