Poem: Where'd All the Time Go?

 There’s a moment

no one really prepares you for—
the one where you look up
and realize it’s all
almost over.

The Friday night lights,
the music-blaring drives
with windows down
and voices louder.
The classes you used to dread.
The comfort of knowing
exactly where you’d be
at 10:15 on a Tuesday.

When did it all change?

When did we trade
snacks in our backpacks
for resumes and deadlines?
When did our jokes start sounding
like goodbyes?

Now everything familiar
feels like it’s slipping through
my fingers—
quiet, like sand
you try to hold too tightly.

It’s not just growing up.
It’s leaving behind
the world we built,
the one that raised us
when we didn’t know we were growing.

The worn-down desks.
The friends who just appeared—
in hallways,
at lunch tables,
in moments that didn’t seem
important until now.

I walk slower these days,
trying to memorize it all.
The way the light hits the lockers.
The sound of one more bell.
The echo of everything
I didn’t realize I’d miss.

It’s a strange kind of grief—
mourning something
that still exists,
but not for long.

So I hold on
a little tighter.

To the laughter
bouncing off cinderblock walls.
To the spontaneous nights
that turned into
lifelong memories.
To the teachers
who saw something in me
before I could see it myself.

Every day feels
a little heavier,
carrying the weight
of a thousand
tiny goodbyes.

I find myself falling
in love with the boring stuff—
the lunch lines,
the parking lot,
the half-asleep mornings.
Because now I know:
these are the last times,
wearing the mask of the ordinary.

We waited so long
for this ending—
the cap and gown,
the sendoff,
the so-called “real world.”

But now that it’s here,
I want to rewind.
Just once.

One more hallway laugh.
One more slow drive
with the windows down.
One more version of us
before we all
become something new.

But time
doesn’t wait for anyone.
It moves forward,
softly,
without asking
if you’re ready.