I know it's hard.
No. You don't.
And I hope you
Never do. I hope
You never have
To find out.

I tend to put my writing out of sight once I’ve written it. I don’t particularly like rereading it too much since I find myself obsessing over it and picking it apart, but now that I’m sifting through a bunch of old poems to type them up and upload them here, I’m reading words that I haven’t looked at in years.

It feels a bit like opening a time capsule left behind by another generation long past. These words don’t feel like mine anymore, but they represent such an important part of my history. I don’t believe in burying past versions of myself however unrelatable I may find them.

This poem was written with nothing but genuine love and worry for others, but as I read it now it feels hateful and angry and self-centered. I suppose I was all of those things as a teenager. Middle school didn’t treat me well and high school treated me worse and I felt as though nobody in the world could understand how alone I was. Talk about teenage drama.

I graduated five years ago and I’d like to think I’ve learned a lot in those years, but the biggest thing I’ve learned is that five years from now I’ll come reread this and laugh at just how little I knew.