Walker 1

Sarah Walker
Period 7
3/26/19

Giving in to You

Each day,
I wake up in bed
And I must leave
Its warm
And comforting safety
To wrestle with you.
Each day,
I am tossed into the ring against you
With no sympathy.
Thrown in
To fight the cruel
And brutal battle
That is, resisting, you.

When I arrive at school,

You have already beaten me there.
The hallway is filled from wall to wall
With students like me.
I fit in here.
I am happy here.
I feel free of you.
But as the muffled hallway chatter
Drones out,
All, I can hear, is, you.
I can feel your cold, vile breath
Icing down my neck
As you lean in over my shoulder
Just to spite me.
You tell me,
That in a few months,
This will all be
Nothing, but, a memory.
 Walker 2
I give in to you.

I arrive home after school

At two-thirty sharp.
I have eight hours.
Eight whole hours to spend
However I please.
I can just lay down and relax,
Watch television, maybe take a nap.
Sure.
Why not?
My to-do list can wait
Just a few more days.
I sit down for a moment
And the still silence of the afternoon
Sweeps over me.
Blanketing me under a pile of exhaustion.
You come in through the open window
With the cool spring breeze.
You enter, and the breeze fades out;
All I can hear
Is you.
You say,
“In a year,
This won’t be your home.
The breeze won’t float
Through the open window
In your second story dorm room.
You need to prepare
For this new life.”

I give in to you.

My parents arrive home

From their long days at work
And when they unlock the front door,
You escort them in.
My parents voices
 Walker 3
Asking me how school was
Begin to dull
As all I can hear is you,
Entering the room.
You sit down beside me,
With you on my left,
And my parents on my right,
My head buzzes.
I am overwhelmed
As they ask me,
“Have you thought any more
About where you want to go next year?”
And you whisper,
“You need to decide.”

I give in to you.

I return to my bed at night,

I am safe here.
Here, you cannot reach me.
Here, you will not find me.
But I know,
In the back of my mind,
That you are waiting for me to rise in the morning.
So that you can follow me around,
So that you can manipulate my life
Into something I don’t recognize.
And with this knowledge,

I give in to you.

You, Change,
Are cruel.
You stretch far and wide
Like a plague which sweeps
Across a weak and fearful people.
You lurk
In the noisy safety of a full hallway,
 Walker 4
In the still silence of the afternoon,
In the small chatter of family members,
In the quiet comfort of a bed.
When I am vulnerable.
To make the wrong decision,
To make the wrong move,
To make the wrong leap of faith.
The truth is,
I am afraid
To give in
To you, Change.