Weighted Boots
POETRY
Dani Fielder
9/23/20261 min read
If a person asked me what my
twenties felt like, I'd say,
"like wearing weighted boots."
It's like desperately lifting your leg
up onto a stair that seems to gradually
and magically keep moving higher.
The weight from the boot
and the pressure of your expectations seem
to pull you back down like death
to your grave, but you push through
to pursue a greatness you always imagined for yourself.
With each clash and clangof the
chains that cling to your designer
boots, it reminds you that you're one
step closer to destiny;
her likeness is one you were told you'd
know when you grow up
but now you've grown up.
There's no more when I grow up.
There's only who you make of yourself from this moment.
As you finally crash your foot on
the stair, for a moment you feel
the weight is gone as it sinks
into the gravity below you.
Then as you look up, the realization
is that the work is not yet over
because the staircase goes up one,
two, three stairs and on into eternity.
This is what my twenties feel like.
It's the weighted boots.
It's society's narrative that you have to know
what you're doing in this period of your life
and have life figured out.
It's the narrative that now you're an adult,
and you don't need anymore help.
It's the idea that no matter how hard you try,
the thing you really want is just out of reach.
It's not until you reach down
and unstrap your boots,
that you realize you can fly. The
only one holding you back was
yourself.