The sun is shining down hard on my head today. My ears burn red under the heat, but I continue to wander my way through Life. The people around, they all seem to know where they are going. No-nonsense business suits and straightened hair; their ties are smoother than the road ahead.
“Put-together”
They do not hesitate. Their gait is sure, their shoulders firm. They are not afraid of the road. They rule over it. They decide where the road will take them.
Which is why sometimes, it feels like their eyes are boring through me. As I slip in and out of alleyways like a needle through a piece of cloth, as I wander and then abruptly stop to look around me, panic-stricken and lost.
I am not yet like them. My hair is a tangle of dreams, my steps wobbly from fear at times. But also from joy, at others. And I don’t look at the road sometimes, because the huge palm tree that tickles the skies is too beautiful to ignore. Because the port is not too far away and if I strain my ears enough, I will hear the boats with their multicoloured flags rocking, splashing in the water. And the birds. The birds are soaring. The wind is blowing, carrying the smell of salt and the sea.
The sun is shining down so hard, but I’m still looking up.
And I wander.
I look on the world like a wayfarer.
I breathe in; I am not yet like them.
But every so often…Every so often, I will see a soul in a business suit. A young man with slicked back hair, still curling at the edges, still a little light from the sun. I can never look at the eyes. Full of drowned hopes and dying dreams. And yet eyes that are still searching. Still searching the sea of people, still hoping with a last thread of Hope that the tide will bring something.
I am not yet like them.
But wanderers are a dying breed. And soon, soon… The sun will be too much. And I will stop looking up.
Young Adult, Old Soul 