On Turning 21

The whole idea makes me feel unsafe

Like I’m going to drown

Something worse than being robbed of your most precious items

Or being taken from all that you love

A kind of stomach churning feeling that goes on forever.

A nosebleed that’ll never stop.

A wound that never heals.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back the once bright past,

But that is because you have forgotten

The time where I wasn’t frowning

And the free spirit that use to be inside.

But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.

At 8 I was dancing in freedom.

I could fly and was never caught by the net of society's lies.

At 16 I was caught and at 20 I was trapped.

But now I am mostly sitting

Watching the invisible numbers of my college debt go up.

Back then it never crossed my mind

That I had to worry about all this time.

And now today I am still trying to find my way,

Down this slippery slope that is now real life.

This is the beginning of a new start, I used to say to myself.

Instead it’s breaking my heart.

As I walk through taxes and bills in my beat up shoes

It is time to say goodbye to those Saturday morning cartoons

and hello to the constant mania on the news.

Time to start unknowing part of life.

It seems only yesterday I used to think that life was going to be a bright light

There was no doubt you’ll ever get lost.

But now I see that the light has run out of time,

And now I sit here completely alone,

Looking for a switch to call home.

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