all of the sudden you’re twenty-nine, standing on the sidewalk barefoot before bed, and the crickets sound just like they did when you were seventeen, sleepless with the windows open. when you remember sadness ran through your body like a fever. nights you were so familiar with the dark—the kind you watched break into daylight around 5, and the kind of restless sinking that never quieted. you remember thinking long and hard through those unceasing nights, in the hidden journals written in your young handwriting, that you’d never live past 18. whether a goal or a prophecy, you weren’t sure, but something felt definite that this grief would be the thing to pull you under, if only hoping a small peace would follow.
the sidewalk is rough, but still warm under your feet. it’s been so long since you’ve thought about this; somehow both twelve years and a lifetime ago. the dog finishes sniffing around the trees and bounds back to you, a happy familiarity once he catches your eye. you’ll both go upstairs to the room you love and fall asleep, in the house you love and share with your best friend. tomorrow, you’ll spend the day laughing, fingers intertwined with your partner, in a loving relationship you’d have never imagined possible.
twelve years after. how easily you saw it over, and what friendships, trips and cross-country moves, published books, new talents, heartaches and bad hair cuts, gardens, and long indulgent breakfasts you’ve accomplished since. you forgot there was a time you couldn’t see yourself alive past eighteen. now, you can’t picture ever wanting to leave this.
might be an outlier here but when i smell my neighbors smoking weed i just smile and nod its like adjacent to hearing christmas carolers for me… good tidings and joy unto you brother
