"I Want To Grow Up"

By Aananda Verma

you’re speaking in haste. time is not kind.

your mother will stop coming to pick you up from the bus stop because

sometime in the seventh grade you decided it was 'embarrassing'.

you will start thinking twice before texting your childhood best friend,

because one day in the midst of delirious laughter you stopped being

the only people that mattered. strangers will stop caring if you trip and

fall in the middle of the road, with bruises of desperation you’ll only get

stares of annoyance. you’ll break, and you’ll cry, you’ll see the world

painted red. you will beg them to leave you alone- and then they will.

slowly. surely. the ringing in your ears will fill the void another night and

you will realise, soon, that there are no voices left to drown.

the world will get cold and unfamiliar, and there will be

no one left to hug but your own bruised knees.

congratulations. you have grown up.

By Aananda Verma