I am different

My heart beats the same as ever

My eyes see just as poorly

My nose works just as well

Yet I am different

When I roll out of bed late

As I skip breakfast

When I face the morning sun

As I run to the bus

I evolve

I develop

Every sunset I grow

Every sunrise I shrink

After another three hundred

Plus sixtyfive

Tilted turns

Adding up to a whole

Lap around the sun

I am different

“Change” has grasped me

In its lukewarm hands

Molding me

As one would clay

Into a strangely familiar character

“Change” seals me

With a searing kiss

And ships me out into the world

For the last months

Of my compulsory education

Whose end I dread

As the word “Unknown”

Looms over me

Inspects the withering mark

Left upon me

And laughs thunderously.

Before my eyes would fill

With naive optimism

And I would laugh back

At the “Unknown”

But I am different

I have learned

Through my own hopes

Being crushed

Being murdered

That ideologies can’t listen

So I smile demurely

Plotting my next motion

My heart thumps

My eyes blink

My ears hear

Yet my future is forever uncertain