I will never be this young again. Never this raw and untamed, never this unsteady yet unshakable, as if the whole universe trembles within me. Youth is a thief disguised as a gift—it hands you the boundless expanse of possibility, only to snatch it away before you can fully comprehend its worth. It lingers in the glint of a sunset, the ache of a first heartbreak, the sound of laughter that tastes like eternity. And yet, it is always slipping—always vanishing between breaths, leaving you chasing fragments of something you’ll never hold long enough to keep.
Youth is a fever, a wild hunger gnawing at the edges of reality, casting everything in a golden haze. It is feral, untamed, and swarming with a hunger for more—more life, more love, more time. You feel everything with an intensity that aches, that burns because life is a secret you must unravel even if it consumes you in the process. You chase it with your whole body, with reckless abandon, as though the world might disappear if you blink too long. You want to taste every flavor of the earth, feel every texture, drown in every color, as if this life, this moment, is the only one you will ever have.
I will never again possess this kind of courage—the audacity to choose myself over comfort, to leap into the unknown, to stand at the edge of the world and dare to claim my space. There is something so youthful about believing that time stretches on, that there will always be another chance, that the road ahead is endless—but it’s not. The walls begin closing in before we realize they’ve surrounded us. One day, I’ll exchange this freedom for the security of stability, this flight for the weight of roots. I’ll wake up in a home I’ve chosen, and question whether surrendering the vastness of possibility was worth the comfort of permanence.
But oh, the sweetness of it all—these late nights where laughter spills into the air like music, ringing through the darkness like a hymn. The sweetness of feeling alive with nothing to prove, nothing to fear, only a desire to live fully in this moment, and then the next. The cool grass beneath bare feet, the touch of the earth grounding me in the glory of now. The songs that play like they’re meant for you alone, pulling at the deepest strings of your heart. And most of all, the sweetness of believing you have endless time, believing it so deeply you forget, even for a breath, that it will one day run out.
But it will.
It scares me—that this will slowly end someday. This idea that everything I am living now will one day be a memory. That this laughter, these nights, this reckless joy will belong to a version of me I can no longer recognize. Youth is a storm—wild and all-consuming—leaving behind a wreckage you don’t know how to rebuild. I don’t know what’s worse: the loss itself or the knowing. Knowing that I’ll wake up one day, sitting in some quiet room, perhaps with the life I dreamed of, perhaps not, and feel the ghost of this moment brushing against my skin. I’ll ache for the girl who didn’t know how precious it all was, who stood on mountaintops, and believed the horizon was hers. I’ll ache for the freedom to chase everything I’ve ever dreamed of.
The world will never look this beautiful again—not because it changes, but because I will. My eyes, now so quick to see the extraordinary in the mundane, will grow weary. The sunsets I marvel at now will become routine, their fiery brilliance swallowed by the noise of responsibility. Even the stars—infinite, untouchable diamonds—will shrink, reduced to distant pinpricks as my sense of wonder slips away.
The city streets at midnight will grow quiet in my memory, familiar yet uncharted. Every alleyway will hum with mystery, every shadow holds secrets I might never know. There will be an urgency to it all, to see everything, to touch everything, to know every corner of the world—because I am young, and the world is wide and waiting. I press on, just a little longer, hoping to stretch this night into eternity, not knowing that it is already slipping away.
I will never again have this kind of strength—the strength to climb mountains, to run until my chest heaves, to dance until dawn with nothing but the thrill of being alive to sustain me. My body, now resilient, will one day betray me, faltering on paths I once scaled with ease. I will look back not with pride for what I achieved, but with sorrow for the peaks I never touched, the roads I left untraveled because I thought there was time.
There is a quiet cruelty in youth, a knife that cuts both ways. It gives you everything in sharp, breathtaking clarity, but it comes with the knowledge that it will not last. You can see the end even as you stand at the beginning. And so, you live with a kind of defiance—daring yourself to take every feeling, every experience, and hold it close, no matter how raw or painful. You love recklessly, knowing that every friendship, every romance is both a beginning and an end. You let yourself feel heartbreak and joy in equal measure, understanding that each feeling is just another part of who you are becoming.
In the quiet hours of the morning, I sometimes catch glimpses of myself in the mirror, hardly recognizing the face looking back. There’s a wideness in my eyes, something that flickers like a flame. I trace the lines of my face, trying to memorize this version of myself—the strange, beautiful self that feels both like a stranger and the truest version of who I am.
To be young is to feel endless, a fleeting eternity you know will one day slip away. And yet, knowing it fades doesn’t make you want it any less. The rush of wind through open car windows, the taste of summer berries staining your fingers, the glow of neon signs on a city street at midnight, the way your chest aches with laughter as you collapse onto a friend’s shoulder—these are the moments that scream youth, wild and untethered, as if they could last forever. Even as time steals them, softening their edges like an overexposed photograph, you’ll try to hold onto them. You’ll keep chasing that part of yourself—the one who dared, who danced, who dreamed—refusing to let it slip entirely away. Because even as youth fades, its fire lingers, glowing faintly in the quiet corners of your soul, a promise to never stop reaching for the world with wide, open hands.
To be young is to live in this strange, impossible paradox; to feel both infinite and achingly finite, to hold the world in your hands even as it slips away. You always want to be young, to live in this fevered dance of light and shadow, forever on the edge of something vast and unknowable. You want to stay here forever, to hold this beauty, this fragility, with a fierceness that borders on desperation.
However, even as you wish it, you know that youth is a promise that cannot be kept. It is a season, just waiting to change. It is the laughter in an empty room, the glow of streetlights casting shadows on forgotten places. It is everything, and it is nothing. A fire that burns bright, then fades, leaving only the soft, quiet ashes of who you once were.
To be young is to feel endless–an eternity you know will one day slip away. And yet, knowing it fades doesn’t make you want it any less. You hold it close—the reckless joy, the wild dreams, the way everything feels like the first time. You chase it, cradle it, try to weave it into the fabric of who you are, as if by sheer will you can make it stay. Even when the years begin to gather, when the weight of time whispers that youth is a season, not a state, you’ll fight to keep that part of yourself alive. Because it’s not just about the passing moments—it’s about the way they shaped you, made you bold, made you believe in impossible things. You’ll carry that spark for as long as you can, letting it guide you, letting it remind you that no matter how many years come and go, a piece of that untamed, vibrant self will always be yours.