Written in June of 2021 and edited in May of 2023
Note from the Author:
How Things Change is a poem in my collection Pieces of Me, which was written as a final project for my creative writing grad class at Texas A&M University—Corpus Christi. Pieces of Me is a multi-genre collection of stories, poems, thoughts, observations, and more. Some of the pieces are nonfiction, some fiction, and some are something in between. The next couple of posts on this blog will be from this collection as a way to have more to post while I finish up some of my current WIPs, but because some of the pieces from the collection are in the process of being published in various places I will only be posting the pieces that I will not be submitting for traditional publication.
When we were young it was knights and shining castles.
Playing house and baking mud pies.
Running barefoot through the rain.
Hiding the laughter with our smiles.
But now it's just waist trainers and diet pills,
And a boy in my headphones singing to me,
“at the end of the world I'll hold your hand,
but only if you learn how to breathe”
And one day all these changes will just seem like a fever dream.
The Temporal Resonance of How Things Change
How Things Change is a reflection poem that focuses on the transformation from childhood innocence and simplicity to the complexities and pressures of adulthood. It juxtaposes the carefree and imaginative nature of youth with the harsh realities and societal expectations that emerge later in life.
I organized this poem to make it seem like there is a “before” and an “after” with lines one through four being left aligned and lines five through eight being right aligned. I intended the middle alignment change of line nine to show that things will still continue changing, that the “diet pills” and depression depicted in the second stanza will not always last. The way the poem physically looks also adds a sense of temporality to the poem, grounding readers in the orientation that time moves forward but where we are at in life can ebb and flow, much like how the first stanza and second stanza appear to be at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of mood and positioning in life, but the last line shows the potential for things to be more happy and carefree again like in the first stanza.
I used the images in the first stanza to represent the innocence and simplicity of childhood activities. I also wanted to introduce a bit of juxtaposition in the first stanza with the line “Running barefoot through the rain” acting as a way to show the carefree and uninhibited nature of children and the line “Hiding laughter with smiles” as a way to hint that even in youthful freedom there are still masks we wear to conform to societal norms. This idea of innocence is further juxtaposed in the second stanza where I shift the focus to young adulthood and the pressures that come with it. The use of “waist trainers and diet pills'” acts as a way to show the societal obsession with appearance and the pursuit of an idealized body image. Lines six through eight further signifies the loss of innocence and the introduction of a sadness that comes with no longer existing in that innocence. And to clarify the reason why lines six through eight represent depression is because one: a lot of people with depression use music as a way to cope, and two: the words being sung hint that the listener is struggling in some capacity and the singer is wanting to help.
Another purpose for the inclusion of the music is to emphasize the influence of media and external voices on shaping one's perception of love and relationships. The lyrics, "at the end of the world I'll hold your hand, but only if you learn how to breathe," can be interpreted as a metaphor for the conditional nature of love and the expectation to adapt and conform to certain standards to receive affection. The inclusion of dual meaning in this poem was also intentionally added in while editing because it adds to the change from simplicity in the first stanza to the complexity in the second stanza. Basically my intent for How Things Change was to encapsulate the bittersweet reflection on the changes people go through from childhood to adulthood, while addressing themes such as societal expectations, the impact of media and external influences, and the longing for a simpler time.
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