That's the thing about growing up
No one prepares you for it
No one tells you about the whirlwind that will take over
Once you step out into the real world
When you'll be buying your own groceries
Hunting your first apartment
Learning to pay the bills
And just keeping it all together
To make it back to work
On mornings you'd rather just be curled up with a cup of tea
But I hope slowly it starts making sense
I come back to poetry
In the hope it'll remind me of who I was
That it'll make sense of who I will be
That with every verse I write
I'll learn to ground myself
Especially on days when everything seems to be happening too fast
When my poetry will jump from one idea to another
Just as life does
And I find beauty in it,
In the unpredictability
In the fact that nothing that's broken can't be repaired
That you can always choose to come back
And start again
That you can kindle old friendships
And laugh about it on the terrace
That even when your hometown seems to change completely
While you were away for college
You'll find the petrichor still holds the same fragrance of the mud
When it rains
That your old school has a new class of students playing football in the football field
In the uniforms that you once wore
And when life seems to be running past you
I hope you can hold on to these things that ground you
Like coming back to poetry on June evening
Like finding time for yourself
And I know it's not easy
You'd rather be scrolling videos on your phone
You're too exhausted to do anything else
But I hope you find the energy to get yourself a glass of water
When you're feeling tired
To call up the friend across the country
And ask for acknowledgement
Of everything you've been going through
To ask to be understood
I hope you know it's not too much
To ask for help
I hope you know it's never too late
You're still figuring out things
You're not required to have things correct at the first shot
And more likely that not you will make an error
And I hope you realise that that's okay
You're allowed to fall
You're allowed to be vulnerable
You're allowed to have bad days
To not be where you had imagined yourself to be five years before
To change your dreams
To change your life
It's never too late
To become the person you like
It's never too late to create boundaries
And choose peace
There is no sin in prioritizing yourself
And I know change scares you
But change can be good
Change can be for the better
Change can be beautiful
And it doesn't have to be perfect
Just like this poem
It doesn't need to tick all the boxes
It just needs to speak to you
Your story just needs to make sense to you.
