The Shrinking Room​

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I remember when the ceiling was a galaxy,

And the hallway stretched into an endless world.

Now, the walls are closing in, tightening their grip,

Measuring the length of my forced maturity.

My old clothes carry the ghost of a smaller me,

A child who believed in maps and hidden doors.

Now I trade wonder for the weight of taxes,

And dreams for the steady hum of a quiet job.

The joints in my soul creak with every step,

As I learn to bend where I used to break.

There is a phantom ache in the bones of memory,

A mourning for the innocence I traded away.

I try to find the wonder in the mundane,

But it feels like trying to catch mist in a sieve.

The mirror shows a stranger with tired eyes,

Wearing the mask of someone who has "arrived."

But I am still waiting to know who I am,

Trapped in the skin of a person I don't recognize.

The calendar marks time with ruthless precision,

And every birthday feels like a quiet surrender.

Why does growth taste so much like salt?

Why does the horizon pull further away?

I am outgrowing the safety of my own skin,

Yet I am terrified of the person I might become.

We are all just trees trying to find the light,

But sometimes the shade is all we have ever known.

It is a heavy, quiet ache—this becoming,

A slow shedding of everything that felt like home.

Maybe the pain is just the sound of the shell cracking,

And the light is waiting on the other side.