Pathway

A poem. Everybody becomes an adult one day and everybody does it their own way.

Pathway

They call us kids.

They say we’re grown.

Tell us to grow up.

They say we’re young.

Say act your age.

But I don’t really understand my age.

To walk away

from days of learning.

To step into a time of sweat,

a time of stirring.

To follow heart

or follow mind.

But never often to combine.

To endure

or to break down.

To make some pennies in my wallet now

or write some IOUs for quarters later.

Does our walk increase our knowledge

or do we travel without a care?

Do we float like a leaf in the wind

or sail against it in hope to find?

They prepare some.

Give some nothing.

But each person on either side

will be pulled into a moment they cannot control.

And those prepared will still lack skill

and those with nothing will be changed.

All kids will leave a world behind,

of fairytales or lives derailed.

Maybe empty spaces or just average places.

They want us to be dreamers,

then we’re told to get it together.

But clouds are hard to reach,

and sometimes it rains.

We’ll never leave our full negligence by the door,

and never to leave is the itch to search for more.

But every young’n will walk forward,

alone in their own ways.

And every adult will be imperfect,

as the child somewhere stays.

And these young adults live lost,

wandering aimlessly at times.

A feeling of uncertainty and unfortunately-

that’s just how it goes.

The only consolation,

that one day they could find their way.

One day young adults will not be young

and they will not be lost.

Or at least not as lost,

and when they do look back,

they laugh.