Old Soul

I was thirteen 

and already learning

how to make myself

smaller

in rooms that felt too

sharp. 

How to sit through

conversations

not meant for children,

but never leave 

unchanged.

While others

collected glitter pens

and kissed in

basements,

I was archiving sighs

and decoding

the way people said I’m fine.

My friends were older.

Their joy came slow,

like tea

steeped too long.

Their heartbreaks weren’t poems—

they were timelines.

I found comfort 

in the way they didn’t

flinch

at my silence. 

My first boyfriend was older too.

Probably too old 

for my sweet sixteen.

But boys my age

were still untouched

by the ache

I woke up with.

I chose the ones who wore their past

like a bruise

beneath a pressed shirt.

They knew what it meant

to carry too many stories

inside one name.

It felt familiar.

Like I’d already lived through

too many Decembers

in too many lives

to still pretend

I belonged with spring.

But maybe it’s not wisdom.

Maybe it’s what happens

when you read the fine print

of the world

before anyone hands you the manual.

When you see

how easily dreams rust,

how adulthood

arrives

like a foreclosure notice

and not a rite of passage.

Maybe old soul

is just code for

you saw too much

before it was safe

to look.

Maybe it’s not reincarnation.

Maybe it’s just 

a childhood 

you had to climb out of 

instead of grow into.