Tell the Kids

Tell the kids—  

don’t rush it,  

don’t race towards the years  

like a train you think will stop,  

but it won’t. It never does.  

You’ll blink, and suddenly  

the toys are packed away,  

the playground is a faded memory  

and the bed you used to crawl into  

becomes a place you can’t leave  

without pretending to be someone else.  

Life will hit them,  

like it hit you—  

hard, like a punch in the stomach,  

the air knocked out of your chest,  

and no one tells you when,  

but you’ll know the moment.  

It’s in the bills that stack like walls,  

the phone calls you don’t want to answer,  

the quiet ache of too many nights  

spent trying to sleep in a life  

you don’t remember signing up for.  

Tell them—  

don’t let the world fool them.  

There are no fairy tales,  

no simple answers.  

Adulthood isn’t a reward,  

it’s a weight you carry  

in your bones,  

in your hands,  

in your eyes that forget  

how to cry.  

Tell them—  

life is a list of things  

you don’t want to do,  

of dreams you hold in your hands  

like fragile paper cranes  

that fly away  

before you’ve had the chance  

to whisper a single wish.  

They’ll learn too soon,  

like you did,  

that the world doesn’t wait,  

it doesn’t pause,  

doesn’t give you a second to catch your breath.  

But maybe,  

just maybe,  

they’ll know what you never did—  

that it’s okay to let the years slip by,  

to admit that you’re not always sure,  

that even now,  

you’re still trying to figure out  

what it all means.