By Vainavi Kumar

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A young person’s feeling while aging.

I visited my elementary school
and it smelled like youth and books
the library fit in my palm 
I could read every time I wished
for something painted or tulips.
sunflowers stand and I’m shorter than the seeds
stripes run my back, I’m wrinkled and small.
I drink wine on sundays because it’s relatable
to be aged and drunk, alone and tangy
except I’m only an adult minus one, without
kisses and boys, smothered in a future
where I am gray and alone like that mourning
dove in my flower pot, mourning and alone.
hot girl summer yet I’m only a girl
ice is thick in the air, frigid at 90 degrees.
my breath blows the clock hands forward,
I try to inhale and my lungs are full
with mosquitos and I can feel myself dying.
I die when I wake up and when I sleep
and when I drink orange juice in the mourning.

Process

As my time in high school is slowly coming to an end, I am filled with a strange dread at becoming old. I fear that my best years have already passed, and that my future is a monotony of gray and boredom. I funneled these fears and emotions into my poem, “Young Mourning.” It represents a realization of the brevity of life, and a shift from wanting to grow up into wishing time would stop.