“growth”

every six months, i look back and wince. as if growth is some cruel mirror, showing me how naive i was to believe i had anything figured out. i thought aging meant answers, that clarity would arrive like the tide, slow and inevitable. but it’s juvenile to think life ever gets easier. nothing about this has ever been easy for me. i’m scared all the time, trapped in a body that keeps trying even when the world doesn’t yield. and still, there’s this quiet, maddening hope that it will all work out. i hate that hope. i trust my gut like religion, like ritual, like it owes me something. i tell myself what’s meant for me will find me. but why would i believe that, when nothing has ever gone to plan. control is a myth i keep praying into. and at night, when the world quiets, i cry to the moon like she has the answers. she never does. but i keep asking anyway.