There is a tear in my existence,
the gap between two milk teeth
breaking away from wide-mouthed childlike innocence
and falling out,
lost to ice cream cones and garden fences
teen dream dancing and cool pretenses
ignorant bliss, aimless goals
and the taste of near-empty Jack Daniels bottles
seems wiped from me
like a milk moustache.

Adulthood, what are you but a mistress who is cruel to be kind
curling and winding around me until I choke in your perfectly proper pencil skirt?
What are you but a greater knowledge of the world and a lesser understanding of it?
What are you but a greater understanding of the self and a lesser affinity with it?

Adulthood, what are you but broken dreams and disappointment?
What are you but bigger dreams with arms that reach beyond death itself?
What do you bring except shrivelled skin and nostalgia for once upon a times?
What but wisdom and a sense of sanguine satisfaction?
What are you but blood and cells and bells and *** and terrific notions and consequences and deckchairs and chinaware and despair?

Adulthood, what are you but glazed-over wasted days and self-loathing?
What are you but three hundred responsibilities taken care of all at once, caffeine eyes and welling pride?
What are you but the inevitable crash and getting smashed and suddenly remembering why I should do things one at a time?

What are you but change upon change upon change upon mistakes made again for the millionth time?
And my changes, now lifeless
cause an identity crisis
about whether I'm really any different in the end
the likes of which will no doubt be seen again
when Monday rolls around,
what are you but Mondays, endless Mondays
driving me into the ground?

Oh Adulthood,
what are you but a downsize of naivity, a self-belief redundancy, a vitamin D deficiency and a proper place for everything apart from me?
What are you but desperate faces smashing into one another, drowning lungs, curtains pulled down, curtains put up, curtains being suddenly important? Curtains ******* me up?
What are you but woodsmoke and patios, warm faces, good graces and the ceaselessly mounting cost of Freddos, buildings and building things and falling in love...

And falling in love, falling asleep, falling awake, falling apart, falling together, falling
falling
falling
down.

What are you, Adulthood, but always always getting back up again no matter what, and alarms and reminders and no bed times
but being so tired you start to admire
that even the sun must sleep sometimes,
even if it always comes back up, shining even brighter
until the timing is right until the living is right until the mind is right only then can we stop trying
only then can we die
no wonder the afterlife is idealised
and even then, will I see the light?
Can I stop now?
Is it really alright?

What are you Adulthood, but a long list of questions?
Because I have so much to ask, you see, but mostly

What are you here for, except to show me how good I had it before?

Adulthood, I don't know.