Five Ways I Know The World Poem by Taylin Gellner

I see the hallway stretch just a little too long,
getting to the end feels like running a marathon.
I see lockers blur into the same tan line,
strangers and friends laughing in circles
while I stand on the sidelines.

I see colors—on clothes, on shoes, on walls—
but they all feel quieter now,
not as bright, not as different,
like the sky after the sun falls.

My name is heard softer now,
most of the time not at all,
like a phone call in the distance
lost in the noise of the halls.

I feel the walls begin to widen,
like I'm somehow growing smaller—
the same white walls that used to close in,
now stretch farther and farther.

I feel alone in a crowd
I once was a part of,
my body moving through spaces
that don't feel like "us."

I feel the absence of hands,
the lack of someone to hold,
the quiet craving for love,
for warmth that doesn't feel cold.

I taste the words I don't dare to say,
every thought I swallow and hide away.
Even my lunch lingers on my tongue,
a distraction from where I'm from.

The words of the people I love
loop over and over in my mind,
the kind that stay with you
no matter how much you try.

I smell the air of things changing—
not a lot, but enough
for the old to slip quietly away.
Memories drift farther each day.

But somewhere beneath all of this—
beneath the good and the bad—
is a kid who doesn't want everything,
just something real, something that lasts.

So I keep moving through this world,
even when it feels immense,
still trying to understand it all
using every sense.