The hardest part of getting older:
I don’t wanna, I don’t feel like it!
Followed by:
No one else will do it for you.

Ten years pass and I still feel like
A kid fresh out of college,
A little naive, a little excited,
The world my oyster.

The other hard part of getting older:
Hearing the child within,
Crying with insecurities and doubt,
But realizing you can handle it.

A friend once said,
She knew I had arrived
By the sound of my laugh.
At first I felt sheepish.

A hearty cackle,
That turns heads.
Another friend once called me
—a hyena, many years ago.

But now I shrug it off.
If my enjoyment irks people,
Better to let them be grumpy.
I will laugh and laugh and laugh.

You see, but you do not observe.
Okay, chill out, Sherlock.
Take a look at the world today,
A mass produced commodity.

Within the sea of bright patterns,
Gaudy jewelry, trendy haircuts,
Who can tell the truth worth
Of a person at single glance?

Tiny details at every turn,
And sometimes—most times—
The effort worthless.
Individualism, a facade.

Mere observation answers not,
Every inquiry.
The solution: conversation.
But I’m too tired for that!

Yesterday I heard,
“Grandma is sick. She’s in the hospital.”
And a peculiar feeling washed over me.
Sympathy for a fellow human in pain,
General concern for a family member—
Passing emotions, gone in a flash.

Two warring sides:
A dutiful granddaughter,
A distant grandmother.
How do I be a proper granddaughter
When I had no proper grandmother?
Irony.

No past shared, but oh how it dictates
The future.
Rippling from grandmother to mother
To daughter.
A history of pain and abandonment
That I can only imagine.

So I harden my heart.
Let it be frigid and unyielding.
I harbor no ill will towards her,
But I sow no deeper roots.
Shared blood alone does not engender
An innate bond.

A child’s first impressions:
The world immense,
Strangers avoided,
Crayola crayons—all 96 colors!

Mother, distant and strong;
Father, warm and jovial;
Marriage, a contract ephemeral—
Fleeting happiness and chronic pain.

A child’s innocence fades with time.
Reality forges a different mold,
That a child wears uncertainly.
Adolescence, a state in flux.

An adult’s impressions:
The world a smaller place,
Strangers a potential friend,
Parents only human.

Mother, bitter and unbent;
Father, sad and unwilling;
Communication, an action stalled—
Fleeting words, chronic anger.

An adult’s indifference transforms.
Experience forges a new mold,
That an adult wears confidently.
Adulthood, a state seeking lost wonder.

Questions jumble together like—
who am i
where did i go wrong
why have i never been in love
am i everything i always thought myself to be
Creating a sort of numbness that paralyzes.

And yet.

A greater weight crushes this messy inquiry—
i know who i am
i don’t need to know the future
i will find love one day
i am always changing
Banishing those nagging demons away.