None of it is permanent,
Except for the bad, it seems
There were intervals of laughter, smiles, my heart beating in between the seconds,
The clasp of another’s hand whose warmth has long since left
There was so much light but just a little bit of ink will turn the whitest paper black
But perhaps there is comfort in that all such memories are finite;
That one day, conversations and moments once so clear
Will fade away into blurred vagueness
Of truth mixed with lies.
In the end, how it feels will be all that remains
And faces I knew by heart will be no more than flashes
In the background of my dreams
By the time I am 60,
I will have heard a hundred times that in a span of a life,
A year is nothing
But in a span of a person,
A year is everything;
I have lived so simply
The scribble of pencils, sitting cross-legged with friends under the shadow of a building,
The monotonous sound of a ball bouncing up and down a court.
Perhaps the simplicity of it all is what makes me desire something new the most,
A generation of kids who didn’t wake up exhausted every morning,
Aching backs carrying the weight of an uncertain future they are not ready for
We have to know so much when in reality, we are taught so little
Starting over only seems desirable when you know things will be different
When they’re not, starting over is merely continuing on with a fancy label
There will always be hope to combat fear and worry,
But hope is as tangible as a warm breeze when compared with
the tangle of unpleasant emotions no one can ever escape from
Some things I will easily be able to burn away,
But it would be foolish not to remember the way ashes cling to skin,
Or smoke seeps into lungs
Looking backwards leads me nowhere but with disappointment,
And the feeling that the future will be a reflection of what I see now
There are times I wish it would slow down,
That moving forward didn’t have to be so alarming,
But like algae covers even the fastest moving waters,
Time stops for no one.