athazagoraphobia
We trip over our graduation gowns,
stumbling into a stuffy auditorium,
anxiously awaiting our turn
to walk on stage
and shake sweaty palms
with faceless principals
and exchange empty “congratulations”
with people we’ve never met
as we accept a piece of paper
that renders four years of our lives
null and void.
“High School won’t matter after this,”
they all say.
The memories,
the people,
friendships,
emotions,
experiences.
It won’t matter after this.
I don’t want to forget
the feeling of my feet aching
after a night of dancing
in a royal blue dress
surrounded by people I love
on the night of my junior prom.
I don’t want to forget
the feeling of exhilaration and pride
that overtakes me when I
break out of my shell,
solid and confining,
for the first time
in a blackbox theater.
I don’t want to forget
the feeling of my chest tightening
as phone calls
stretching long into the night
masked by heavy eyelids and slurred speech
inevitably mention
the future
and what it has in store for us.
I don’t want to forget
the feeling of powerlessness
that fills my very being
the first time I see
someone I love so dearly
break down in tears and
confess to me
how afraid she is.
I don’t want to forget
the feeling of naive joy
that surfaces
as I scratch at the mosquito bites
and cringe at the sunburn
received through spending
countless days and nights
outside with friends
talking about anything and everything
under the sun.
I don’t want to forget
the feeling of seemingly
insignificant moments
coming to a head,
becoming poignant,
irreplaceable,
and turning into moments
that are worth the world
and more.
“Everything seems like a big deal
when you’re young.”
How painfully true that is,
because everything is heightened.
Happiness is euphoric, ethereal,
a kind of high that one will almost always crave.
Sadness is debilitating, devastating,
a kind of low that one feels they will never escape.
These heightened emotions,
the uncontrollable highs and lows,
mean something.
The memories
the people,
friendships,
emotions,
experiences,
that trigger these
unhinged reactions to the world surrounding us,
mean something.
In hollow celebration,
we hurl our graduation caps in the air,
letting them rain back down upon us,
sharp corners and all.
I don’t want to forget.
the first relatively "poem" like thing i ever wrote on a night in june where i felt like my future was too close for comfort.
