Remember This

Hi!
So, this is a poem I wrote for a contest at my school. I won! I am not allowed to write rhyming poetry (my lit arts teachers hate that), so it doesn't rhyme. But I like it.

Remember This
For Alex, Ben, and Julian III, little cousins 1, 4, and 2

You’ll grow out of it.

For better or for worse, you’ll grow out of

wearing your underpants on your head,

tying pom poms in your brother’s hair,

crying over multiplication tables.

You’ll grow out of

screaming at 3 AM,

trying to exist solely on sweets,

coloring bedroom walls with crayon stubs.

 

You’ll leave all that behind you.

You’ll go from getting kites stuck in budding branches

to picking knots out of kite string,

go from leaving Duplo blocks scattered on the carpet

to packing them away on top shelves.

You’ll go from falling in the pool

to scooping algae out of it,

go from hunting jelly-bean filled Easter Eggs

to hiding them.

It happens to the best of us.

 

Just, don’t forget.

Don’t fill your palms with the dust of

your crying, coloring, candy-filled self

and throw it into the wind.

Don’t leave that first you crumpled on the floor,

worn clothes gathering dusk under the bed.

Peel off that person you used to be

and leave everything you used to be intact,

a cicada shell detailed with every scratch and pebble of

who you were.

Keep it.