Are We Wise Or Are We Misled? Or Do We Not Care Enough Anymore To Discern Which Is Which? Poem by Sarai Girma

Ever since I was four or five,
Or the moment I could speak well enough to ask why,
They told me I’d understand when I got older.
Well, I’m eighteen. I know I’m not grown—
I’ve seen enough to know that I’ve got a long way to go—
But when do I get a little understanding?
I’m starting to think it never comes.
I finally get the look, that tired look I saw in my mom’s eyes
When I asked her why life can’t be exactly the way
I imagined it in my naïve, young little five-year-old fantasies.
That tired look, the one that indirectly told me that she was only
Telling me half truths, but this time it really was for my own good.
She always told me I’d understand when I got older.
Sometimes, when I start thinking about the way
Things could have been, I see that look in my own eyes.
But like every kid who ever fought her parents to the death,
I always promised myself I wouldn’t be like her.
And I never, ever want to become jaded.
I don’t ever want to become that disillusioned
Or see that look again. But I do see it every once in a while—
It’s the way I feel after reading of fantastical places and
People who never were and never will be,
Where you know everything will turn out okay because
The book will end and the pages will run out and by the last one,
Everyone will be fine and know their place again.
It’s the way I feel after a night out, when I’m back in my room,
And I look in the mirror and I see the made up girl with
Too much makeup on, in clothes that are not her own and
Living a life that is not her own with
Friends who can’t be her own because they don’t know her,
At least not really.
It’s the way I feel when I think about all my dreams, and the way
It always works out in the end, whether I tried or not;
And the fact that the Harvard grads and the 7-11 cashiers all end up
In the same place when it’s all said and done, and whether
They’re in mahogany or cedar or pine or oak, no one knows or cares,
Because they’re six feet under and long forgotten. It’s the way I feel
When I hear the rebellious words of our times, and once in a while
I agree, because despite their whiny tones, maybe
They’re onto something.
Maybe nothing matters.
Then I spend so long trying to dissuade myself from
That line of thought, and I come out of it all so,
So spent and confused, and then I stare off into space…
And then I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
And there goes that look again.
Maybe it’s inevitable.