growing up
Hari Bhimaraju ‘21
lying on our backs on blades of soft grass, we watch a doggy drift across the vast blue chasing an old woman with an umbrella? or maybe it’s sweet tea she freshly brewed. it’s hard to tell what the white puffs spell, but we giggle anyway and think they’re true until we grow up, grow out of imagination and the heavens fade to weather stations. the crisp navy of fresh denim carries a thrill of feeling the holes close and a chapter begin. we take cute snaps and flaunt our bills, proud to wear fashion’s “NEW BIG THING” but soon we miss that comfortable drill of stretchy fabric that seems to mold our skin. so when the cerulean fades into familiar gray, we almost welcome it until next pay day. life reminds me of clouds and jeans. at first, we listen to mystic twinkling of dreams but most everyone learns to grow up and out, until we’re just rain and grayscale printouts wondering: why doesn’t happiness last forever? the problem with growing and trying and fading is that we build a routine that’s suffocating. we sell our friends and nights and souls to companies that lap us at every post, making us pay toll to enter our own minds — which we trampled, in our addiction to the grind. it’s because we’re taught to value destruction, success has no meaning without obstructions. i want to be i don’t want to grow updifferent i just want to grow with out all the build up. i’ll know the weather, but still look at the clouds for i believe there’s wonder in those fluffy shrouds.
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