time goes on

i know that i am getting older

because when i go to the pool or to the beach and i see a body of water

i am much less urged to jump right in

because i am afraid it will be too cold.

i always wondered why my mother ever said no when i asked if she'd like to come in the ocean with me on a 70 degree day

and i hate that i understand it now.

i have grown up with a fear of growing up

and that's why every time i go to the pool or to the beach and i see a body of water

i force myself to jump right in

i am desperately grasping for any remnants of my childhood; i am afraid of what i am. 

fear is a learned behavior

and i hope and i pray that i can unlearn it to preserve any part of youth that i can

i am living a life that is tumbling forward

while i try to work backwards against myself.

i am afraid to grow up

i am living my worst nightmare-

one that has been cultivated through years of people telling me

"trust me, you don't want to grow up, enjoy your youth while it lasts, it is fleeting."

and i believed them.

they hope that you won't believe them and that you'll say the same thing to your kids because it's a part of life to miss what you once had.

but i believed them.

i remember a night in the summer when i woke up and i started weeping for the dead and for how i was already running out of time and my face was stained with tears and those stains are still burned into my cheeks and my freckles absorbed the tears.

i was six years old and running out of time and i still feel like i'm running out of time and i still feel like i'm running out of time, but maybe i'm just running from time and the time is running out of me.

the day i turned four i locked myself in a room and i said "i am still three i don't want to be four i don't want to be old" and my family still jokes about how i was such an outrageous child and it makes me sad that i am not a child anymore and it makes me sad that i was sad at four years old because of something i cannot control but am still endlessly afraid of. 

time keeps going.

it does not care.

it does not weep for the dead or kiss your forehead when you cry out for it.

time keeps going, time does not care, and i will never outrun that son of a b***h.