Hello Class of 2025

hello class of 2025

hello class of bleary-eyed scholars

hello class of masked wisdom, of disguised blessings

hello class of unsettling change

the world has asked much of you this year

and it’s no good pretending otherwise

you’ve been thrown upon the cliffs

lovely Andromeda

and i wish i could give you a Perseus

to save you from

a thousand sea monsters nipping at your toes or

perhaps swallowing you whole?

now you have demons you couldn’t even name before

and it seems like everything is

loss, loss, loss

at first you hurled yourself against this acidic existence

and picked off your scabs,

ignoring the new ones forming just

a second later

ignoring your

loss, loss, loss

but what did you gain?

did you gain anything at all?

some simple things?

or lovely things

or horrid things

or an appreciation for the

brutality we exist in

a reality that changes without care

but a reality you can survive

and finally everything became familiar again

strawberries taste like strawberries