Growing Up

I grew up between time zones,

measuring years in PCS,

learning that “home” could be a mailbox

I learned to stop checking.

I became fluent in starting over,

new hallways, new faces, new versions of me

introduced like I had always been there.

Now I’m eighteen,

standing at the edge of something louder than moving trucks,

where goodbyes don’t come with return dates

and I can’t follow behind anymore.

They call it becoming an adult,

but I still carry every place I left

like stamps pressed into my skin,

proof I was here, even if I didn’t stay.

And maybe that’s what growing up is:

not choosing where I came from,

but choosing what I carry forward.