*This is a piece that I wrote on October 3rd, 2017. I was reminiscing on a more simple time in my life. Rainclouds full of nostalgic water droplets were dropping all over my keyboard and this poem was written.*

Balance

When I was a young child, my grandfather taught me how to take my training wheels on and off my bike

I liked that

When I was feeling free and confident I would take the screwdriver and turn the security all the way to the left until it tumbled onto the soft dirt ground

I would ride 

I fell and the ground didn’t seem very soft anymore

Screwdriver in hand again, I tightened my control until the metals seemed as though their atoms would be forever locked in a balance of inseparability

I would ride again

I eventually learned how to ride my bike with only two wheels and for a few moments I felt balanced

This didn’t last long though, and I found myself in new situations that required me to grow and to learn 

It’s so hard to feel at equilibrium when you’re learning

I feel like I’ve been learning a lot lately

I feel the weight of the knowledge of the universe on my shoulders 

I’m outside of the cave and the world’s tilt is constantly having me sway from left to right

I accept it

But I don’t like it.

I don’t have a screwdriver that tells me “why”

I don’t have a screwdriver that makes me feel less like a simulation

I don’t have a screwdriver that teaches me how to love myself or how to fix the sadness in the people I love 

I miss being a child

I miss my grandfather 

I miss those moments of balance that seem so far in between now

But they still come, so I still keep going.