Changes

You can’t stop people from having babies Little bundles of chaos and vomit Erupting from inside them to change their lives Soft and maneuverable When you stare at the blank slate It screams and cries back at you

You can’t stop babies turning into toddlers Balls of energy and chaos Misunderstanding, miscommunication and screaming So much screaming.

Children, tweens, teens, students You live a moment in your body and become someone else Shed your skin and take your warmth from the sun Never stepping on the same foot twice

When a thirty year old looks back ten years They are horrified to discover they are still an adult You can’t stop people from stopping Changes slow, the blur becomes a steady frame

Like a man getting up from an airplane seat Having made peace with sitting confined forever You might realize you never meant this life To be your final resting place You had plans and ideas For each year and decade But years and decades are both just made of days And days can go by unchanging Like drops of water building a stalactite

But horror can become comfort And we take the person we’ve become for granted Holding dear onto our skin as it itches to shed As change after change piles on We’ve learned sameness, Like a simplified lesson when the truth is too complex. You can choose change, or it can choose you. You can’t stop people from starting.