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.

"i am an adult"
are the words that escape her tongue
sixteen, barely seven
she thinks she is an adult

still reaching the top shelf with her tippy toes
laughter loud
unhesitant
large
she thinks she is an adult

speaking about politics
social justice
her life
she thinks she is an adult

one day soon
the weight on her shoulders will heavy
feeling the responsibilities
eyes dim
soul tainted

she will realise she does not want to be an adult

forced to grow up at such a young age
my father stopped reading me those bedtime stories
and the next thing i knew, i was alone
with nobody to save me from my worries

a young girl with a dream that would never come true
too naive to see through all the lies
and the pain behind her rose-colored glasses
that covered her sorrowful eyes

and as i sit in my tiny new room crying at 4 am on the carpeted floor
i realize that my mom won't comfort me like she used to
i'm alone in this world and i can never break through

I tell myself that I’ll one day,
Have everything I’ve always wanted
And more.
But as life passes and my time on Earth
Grows shorter and shorter.
And my struggles only seem to get harder
And more trivial at the same time,
I wonder if it’s even worth losing my hair or if I have invested enough, or even at all.

I wish I could have a conversation with
The girl I was ten years ago
And the woman I will be in ten years.

We shared stories as the hours passed by.
Each secret detail, leading to more intimate detail.
Hearing each others mistakes, failures, blunders..
It is an open invitation to share in the humility of the human condition.
We live within the tales of another, carefully refitting the pieces of each other.
So far from the picture we once held, but ever better, imperfect even.
The refined inadequacy is all the truth we ever needed.
For who would we be without them.

It becomes clear to me that growing into an adult has little to do with leaving anything behind, and more to do with the responsibility of knowing.
Forget your worries about keeping your soft animals. You can keep them. You can keep your colorful things. But think: what will you do with what you know?
This is the real question.

You are an adult, which only means that you have lived long enough now that you must decide what to do with your knowledge. It is your duty.
What will you do now that you have seen the world is not kind? Will you be kind in its place? Will you be kind to everyone you meet? Or will you hoard your kindness, like a tired dog whose fur has fallen in all its scars?

What will you do, now that you know fear and all its soldiers? Will you hurl rebellion in a glass bottle to those who weaponize it? Will you scream back at it when it tells you to silence yourself? Will you hold the other’s hand, when they tell you quietly, that they too are afraid?

What will you do, now that you know love and all its terrors? Will you embrace it? Will you work to move through it? Will you want it even after it shows you your lover’s own fears? Will you learn to swim in it, so that you don’t drown like children do?

What will you do now that you know suffering, despair, the state of all around you? Will you sit and watch? Will you turn away from duty, to keep your soft animals close and sigh, “I’m nothing but a pretty babe in the wood”? Or will you pick up your fists, and march towards that which needs changing, with all the colorful things in your pocket, and the soft animal, sleeping safety back home?
What will you do, darling babe, now that you’ve grown, now that you know?

Decide. That is what the adults must do.

The strange occurrence of love,
is one to not indulge,
in a vision with no light,
the black is a loving home,
with broken souls that become a gentle touch,
what once was blue from blurs of youth,
is grey with undignified truth,
do I ditch the spoken or the seen,
the felt or the unreality,
the body or the soul,
the heart or my cold bones,
echoes of conscious and the unwilled,
fireflies and deaths of stillness,
a mix of nothing and the scrape of something,
the lack of knowledge about my understanding,
mix of thoughts and lack of action,
seems my mind has turned into
a poisoned slushi of carnage
and
dying passion.

the ivy grows upwards
clawing at a ceiling fan  
looking to catch a glimpse of movement
the dust collecting on the blades is only proof of it's constant use
propelling a back and forth lasso of breath and exhale

my body has grown since last summer
the color of my eye mimicking jars of honey on your favorite shelf
I used to seek out momentum, the tumult of a sweaty night or the ongoing pulse of crowded people in small houses laughing about the spilled wine on hardwood floors
I can't tell if I was ever that person or if she was a catalyst of boredom swamping my every decision-making unable to make one properly for myself

I want noise and quiet
gritting teeth but a perfect mouth
I can't help but think of all my bones when walking outside
keeping me upright and unbreakable if only a shadowy and milky illusion
those places in my mind keep collecting freckles of dust and the people I've left behind now have blurry faces and unrecognizable personalities
but where there was once melancholy for different times
there's only a dog pulling me forward as the ivy grows up