Adrift

There was a time the ground held still,
when every bruised knee was cured by a mother’s gentle touch,
and the entire universe felt safe enough to fit inside a single room.

We were tethered then to pure certainty-
anchored by our parents’ hands,
hands that shouldered every heavy choice,
so we never had to know the cruelty of doubt.

We spent all our childhood longing to break away,
dreaming of the day we would finally be free.

Somewhere between then and now,
the chain snapped without a sound.

No one warned us that growing up
is just learning how to swallow panic in silence,
how to dissect a raw feeling until it loses its pulse,
trading effortless tears for cold, calculated reasons.

Now every bruise is overthought.
Every silence is negotiated.
And the cruelest realization settles in the chest:
we were truly free back then, wrapped in their protection-
and adulthood is just an open cage.

You look around at the vast, terrifying water of choices,
searching for a harbor you were so eager to leave behind,
only to realize-

You spent years begging to escape the shore,
only to find yourself unmoored in the deep, drifting in the quiet terror
of having to be your own anchor.

~Janya

(Inspiration: “Childhood” by Marcus Nathan and “I Remember, I Remember” by Thomas Hood.)