There are things they don’t tell you about getting older,
how one day you will realize
that the home you grew up in
no longer feels like home
and you’ll be yearning for somewhere else
even as you are sleeping in the bed
that you slept in as a teen,
these changes come slowly,
but hit you all at once.
They do not tell you
that you will look the same
as you did last year
and last week
but you will feel like the world
shifted a few inches overnight
not telling you that it was going to do so,
but leaving you to pick up the pieces
of the memories it left as it moved,
you will grow to understand
that some things will never make sense
no matter how much you shake your fist at God
and cry into your mother's shoulder,
they do not tell you that you will not always be able
to cry into your mother's shoulder
or call your dad when your car breaks down
or feel comfortable in the places
that used to make your eyelids relax
into peaceful sleep,
they are too busy learning these things themselves
that they forget to tell you the things
you wish you knew
before it was too late.