Member Poem

It’s been two years,
but still, the hallways call.
Not just halls, portals,
where I first learned to stumble
before learning to stand tall.

I miss the clang of locker doors,
the wild stampede at the lunch bell’s cry,
the way dismissal tasted like freedom,
bittersweet, fleeting,
a sky unstitched with every goodbye.

We ran—God, we ran,
like wind without reason,
brushing past rules like dust
off the edge of a better season.
Teachers raged, their patience thin,
we were chaos. Loud.
Unapologetically young,
wearing our uniforms like armor,
as if youth itself made us proud.

The cafeteria’s scent,
the whispers by the stairs,
friendships like puzzle pieces
we never knew how to care for,
yet always fit.
Some days we fought,
some days we laughed till we split,
and still, I miss all of it.

People say,
It’s life. Just a phase.
But those weren’t just days,
they were the blueprints of becoming.
They were not filler, they were forming.
Not merely fun, they were storms
that shaped our roots,
taught us how to bloom
without knowing what we were blooming for.

High school,
a place they call temporary.
But its lessons?
Permanent.
I learned that dreams
aren’t just for sleeping,
that hope,
even when fragile,
is worth keeping.

And me?
I was nothing special,
just another face in the frame.
But in those hallways,
I found my name.

No crown, no spotlight,
but still, I grew
and began to believe
that maybe,
just maybe,
I could become someone
that the lost kid I was
would look up to.

And now,
I walk different roads,
but carry those tiled corridors in my stride.
I owe that boy,
the one who stood at his locker,
silent and unsure,
a future he never imagined.

So, to the reader:
this poem is a thank you,
a torch passed back
to a younger me, and maybe to you.

Ask yourself:
What did you take from those years?
What did they give you,
besides scars and smiles?
Maybe, like me,
they gave you belonging,
a place to fall and fly.

So next time life feels too grown,
remember the hallway.
It still echoes with who we were,
and hints at who we’ve yet to become.