When I Was Young

a poem

Along with my monthly newsletter, I’m planning on sharing a few other types of posts — poems, short stories, essays — and I thought I’d start with a poem. This is actually my first poem from my first February Poetry Adventure in 2022.

Being human is scary, but up until a few years ago I assumed I could defeat the complications in life, solve the unsolvable medical equation of being ‘healthy’, figure out relationships, outsmart time, and then I’d get to live life the way I really wanted to. And then I turned forty and then the pandemic and then, for the first time, I lost loved ones to age and not illness. And what I’m coming to understand, what I’m trying to embrace, is my own fleeting nature. I’m trying to notice the beauty of now, to release the tight hold I’ve had on my expectations and fears, and keep loose fingers around the sands of time. These musings are where this poem came from. I’ve made some changes to it since the original, but the core is still very similar.

I often write poems and essays because I hear a voice in my head speaking a line I can’t ignore. This poem was no exception. (And yes, I am completely at peace with most of the voices in my head. I think it’s a prerequisite as a writer.😉) The prompt was ‘stone’. And the voice whispered the first stanza in my head all morning. Then, when I sat down to write, the poem just flowed out. They’re not all like that. But this one was.

When I Was Young

When I was young
I believed myself
to be cut from stone

indestructible
unchanging
needing only

to chisel and grind 
away imperfections
but now I notice

the fissures
as time crumbles
away at me

Now I am coming to understand
I have always been
a disintegrating moment

a figure of compressed sand
held together only briefly 
by time and memory

Thanks for reading.

Love you, Petra ❤️

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I love having conversations in the comments. This means, as always, I’m trusting you the reader to give me the benefit of the doubt if I say something weird, or create space for something which doesn’t align with what you think or where you are in your journey, just as I’ll do for you. And please extend the same courtesy to fellow commenters. This is a space to respect each other and the fact that being human is both amazingly beautiful and fucking complicated. Thank you for your respect.