on growing up: a small tangent.

Here I am.

 

grass tickles my legs

i breathe in the sweet air

bliss after an eternity in the classroom

 

in my periphery

classmates yell and chase each other

discharging pent-up energy

 

if I head east I’ll find myself in a circle of girls playing patty cake

southwards there are others making small talk

 

a feathery smile brushes the corners of my lips

as I realize

usually, junior-year me would join them

 

but today I just sit here.

 

not because

i don’t fit into any of these crowds

but because

i choose not to be a part of them.

 

in this instant

the candle of my childhood is relit

wax melting into puddles of imagination

air filling with the smell of carefree delight

this moment brings it all back.

 

while my peers are caught up in each other and their wordly drama

peace radiates off my body

it spills into my brain

 

everyone’s conversations crowd the airspace

trying to catch a radio wave

my music blurs them all out

i once hated that sequence of chords

but memories of That October no longer faze me

they linger but

now the music holds a fresh promise

of record playing and rosy sunsets

soft lights and cozy blankets

 

i usually blow out the worn candle

lest it mix with the shiny notes in the air

but today, I let it burn

while the warbling soliloquy serenades my audience of one

 

aromatic cacophony

 

forms a bubble around me

my ethereal, observant, pure self from third grade

finally reconciles with who I am now

the purely aesthetic girl with abundant friendships and

a greater abundance of failures

 

some things have always been the same between us

the constant tide of music

my half moon smile

even though that music has diverged from my youth

and I smile for different reasons

the core of my being remains,

unchanged

 

usually, I hate the person that has come out of all these years

shallow

vapid

garrulous

 

but as the words to this song

emerge from my mouth and take flight

joining the noise that already surrounds me

i know

my virtues haven’t totally vanished after all.

 

This poem is about: 
Me
Poetry Terms Demonstrated: 

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