Some evenings feel heavier than others,
the sunset spills like spilt tea across the floor,
and the birds once small dancing flipping metaphors of freedom now seems to march towards away- the cliff of my room is quiet- they don’t sing to me anymore to amuse.
Or maybe, I’ve just forgotten how to listen when they are beside.
I sit in a room lined with pages, glued with cards which are meant to shape my future,
but none of them know my name yet I have crammed my heart.
I read, grasp and skim until my bones ache with borrowed ambition,
and still, I cannot tell
if this is growth or quiet erasure.
There’s something folded inside my chest
not sadness or hopelessness, not quite weariness either
just a question that refuses to speak aloud.
Something like:
am I building a life or abandoning the one I had!?
like I’m running towards something
and away from myself, all at once-a paradox I'm glued into.
I used to name clouds in the sky,
trace dreams with the feathers of sparrows,
but now, even sunsets pass like a to-do list, even the birds go like a hum but I don't find it shrill.
Not because it’s no longer beautiful, or melodic
but because I don’t know
if I still belong to that kind of wonder.
The world claps for the ones who make it,
but no one sees the silenced constellation
who slowly stops watching the sky
because it reminds me of the things
I don’t have time to feel.
Everyone talks about the finish line,
but no one asks
what we lose on the way there.
