Graduation (working title)

And the air grows stale from aborted apologies.
It’s kind of funny how we think we’re grown up.
Time creeps up, and before we know it,
we’re supposed to be adults,
but nothing in our eyes and nothing in our hands
gives the impression that we’re ready.
The words left unspoken, silent whispers in our ears,
aren’t enough to hold us steady,
and the sky opens up and it calls us forward,
and we’re unsure, but faking it well.
We think it’s been the best of our lives,
but the wise ones know it’s been hell.

We’ve weathered the storm, but it hasn’t stopped raining,
just rolls like marbles off our small backs,
and the lightning’s farther off now, but the thunder’s still complaining,
and it’s like anticipating paradise, but only looking through the cracks.
Dreams woven through friendships and car rides and hallways
get picked apart, stitch by stitch.
And it’s clear that one of these roads is the right one,
but it’s not always quite so clear which.
Breathless, we run to the distant doors
blown open from the crowd,
and we’re sure we could hear our own hearts screaming
if everyone else’s wasn’t so loud.

Regrets are a luxury we cannot afford,
but it’s too late to turn back anyway.
The music is playing, the lights are shining—
there is no other day.
All the grasped hands and shared tears in the world
won’t bring back a moment of it now—
and the poetry, the math tests, the school plays, the carpools,
just get lost in the crowd.
We haven’t been perfect, but we know what counts,
what to remember, who held on…
and it’s been hell, and parts have been heaven;
I can’t believe that now it’s gone.