Before I Was Twenty
I woke to a room too small for dreams,
Walls breathing with quiet sighs,
The ghosts of a boy I left behind
My mirror is a liar,
Grinning with stubble and shadowed eyes
Where is the reckless grin
That laughed at curfews and slammed doors shut?
Seventeen was a fistful of summers,
Sunburnt knees, the taste of daring.
I miss the chaos,
The boy who thought falling
Would always lead to flying.
But twenty feels too steady, too quiet
A stranger’s hands holding mine
I miss the noise, the weightlessness,
And the wild hunger for the next leap
Now I sit here, twenty and lost
Not quite a man, not quite a boy,
Still searching for the in-between.
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