The Antithesis

Faces, brand new

Footsteps I could not recognize

Voices I hear only now

Grass newly cut

Trees newly grown

Walls newly painted

Still the air is familiar

Cold but warm

Home but not home.

I best not hang onto

This doorknob

That my hand has outgrown,

That my hand has last held

Months and months past.

A shuffling of feet—

Mere children,

Epitomes of youth

As I might have once been

To the wiser cohort.

Subtle, one-second glances.

What do they know,

I wonder?

I was there once,

Felt the same pressure

These footfalls of docility

Currently feel,

Heard the same shrieks

Of spontaneous ecstasy

Bouncing against the four walls

Of learned homogeny,

Spoke the same rubbish

To appease the educator.

I’ve left that point,

Grown up as we're all told to do,

Matured despite constant protest

Because it’s supposed to be that way.

Ready or not ready,

They will take their turn someday,

Because now all I see 

Are those same happy eyes

I once wore, 

And for which,

However lacking

In old wisdom

(And sadness, perhaps)

I would have sold my life to keep.

#

My friends and I dropped by our high school two days ago for the graduation ceremony. We left after an hour and a half because we realized not being a part of it made it drab. (I'm sorry, friends-who-have-graduated. Our appetites got the better of us and the worse portion for you.) Still, congratulations!