Mixed Feelings

You wake up.

You don’t remember deciding to exist. 

You’re five. 

Someone has already picked your clothes.

They say, “Smile.” You comply. 

You learn familiarity assumes consent.

Your first memory is not love. 

It’s being told, “Don’t touch that.” 

Followed by touching it anyway. 

Followed by consequences. 

This is called learning.

School happens. 

You are taught alphabets, numbers, 

and how to stand in straight lines for reasons no one explains. 

You are rewarded for silence. 

You are punished for curiosity. 

You are told this will matter later.

You believe them.

You learn that good handwriting is a moral achievement. 

That colouring inside the lines is character. 

That stars on notebooks are early forms of currency.

Someone asks, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

You say, “Happy.” 

Everyone laughs. 

You learn truth has a funny side.

Years pass. 

Your backpack gets heavier. 

Your questions get quieter. 

You discover comparison. 

It moves in next door and never leaves.

You learn to raise your hand only if you’re sure. 

You learn that wrong answers linger longer than right ones. 

You learn that confidence often belongs to people who do not question.

Puberty arrives unannounced. 

Your biology mutates without permission. 

Your emotions crash without explanation. 

Everything feels personal. Nothing is.

You fall in love. 

Not with a person. 

With an idea. 

Mostly of yourself, reflected back with approval.

It ends. 

You call it character development. 

Your friends call it “part of life.” 

You realise life scribbles in ink

and all you have is an eraser.

You get a phone. 

Then a better phone. 

Then the anxiety of keeping it charged. 

Your Wi-Fi becomes your personality. 

Your algorithm knows you better than your parents ever tried to.

Your school says, “These are the most important years of your life.” 

You panic responsibly. 

You optimise stress. 

You learn to perform concern.

Adulthood arrives disguised as freedom. 

It comes with passwords. 

And meetings. 

And the slow realisation that weekends are just brief cooling periods before shit hits the ceiling.

You get a job. 

You introduce yourself with your designation. 

You laugh at jokes you don’t find funny because rent has opinions.

You learn new phrases: 

“Circle back.” 

“Let’s align.” 

“This is not personal.” 

You say them fluently. 

You stop asking what they mean.

You scroll past wars. 

You double-tap grief. 

You watch the world burn between two ads for shoes you don’t need but deserve, apparently.

Someone asks again, “What do you want to be?” 

You say, “Stable.” 

No one laughs. 

You realise honesty and humour are both subjective.

You start conversations with, “Back then…” 

You complain about kids these days. 

You forget you were once a complaint too.

One day, you stand on a stage, 

sit at a dinner table 

or wallow inside your own head and say, 

“Back in my day, things were different.”

The pigeons nod. 

They have heard this before.

From cavemen. 

From kings. 

From rebels. 

From people who genuinely believed they were the exception.

You wake up.

You hope it was a fever dream, 

that you could wish it all away

like how someone you once loved

told you they had.

Your phone is at 4%. 

Your brain is rebooting. 

Your Wi-Fi is trying to connect, 

because humans don't anymore, 

they vibe like dead wavelengths

bouncing off binaries stacked up as walls. 

Somewhere, the pigeons watch, absolutely certain 

this is going exactly as planned

nodding like mixed feelings

watching history repeat itself 

and wondering, if getting monkeys off trees and into SUVs was evolution's greatest heist.