Losing and Gaining

 

2016 was a bad year they say.

I disagree, in an odd sort of way

Things were bad, and people died

But 2016 was the year I learned not to hide

From myself, from my feelings, from the world as a whole

I tried to stand up and make myself grow.

 

New Years Eve 2016.

Everyone is there

My new friends

My old friends

The boy that I love

Who would have thought that just a year away

Many of them would be just strangers, passing in the hallways

Whispering about things I don’t have a part in.

That boy that I loved?

Turns out it was a waste.

He apparently loves every girl, if they’re his taste.

I lost a close friend, and a love all in one.

He took people with them, when he went

People I loved, gone, right and left

They talked about me,

How I was selfish

How I was rude

It hurt, but I didn’t come unglued

I learned to soldier on

To stand up, and take it

Because of this loss, I knew I would make it

In the end it was better, because I gained a new perspective.

Love was just around the corner, but not in the form I expected.

Beginning of summer, I sit in a waiting room.

“Nothing to be done” the doctors went,

My cousins life had abruptly been spent.

Life is too short

I began to realize

There’s no point in wasting the time you are given

So I went back to school with a new outlook on living

The friends that I had spent time with, so casually

Now became my everything, my family.

The friend who I had barely even gotten to know at all,

Became the best friend I had ever had

And a love for which I was to fall.

I had to face up to my fears which I had

Many of them deterring me from making a stand

Self-reflection on my anxiety kept me awake

But I learned, this year, how much I could take.

I ran for office, thought I could make a change.

It came to be true, and our school was never the same.

I went to concerts,

to cities,

to new places I had never seen

And all of them left an imprint

Making me better than I had been.

 

2016 was a bad year they say.

I disagree, in an odd sort of way.

Sure things were bad, and the world seemed a mess.

I lost some good things, but I gained the best.
 

This poem is about: 
Me
My family
My community
Poetry Terms Demonstrated: 

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