Is/Was

How simple I feel.

I don't have to be here.
Everyone's directing me to the door, whispering:
"You're free to leave."
But I'm persistent and I stay.
If not for just another day.
I do not have to be here.

I am involuntarily tethered.
I'm chained to the scuffed floors,
the scratched desks, the lite graffiti
scrawled on the whiteboard.
To this dirty and slowly absolved atmosphere,
to the ending of another year.
Even if I'm not a part of that end,
rather, a transitional ghost.

I know that I am just one part
of one cog in an ever-rotating
cluster of carousel gears.
But now that we are rusted,
this is not our end.
This is part of my forever.
This is part of our forever.
We are something bigger.
I can rest knowing we are giants,
in a thick forest
that comes up
only to our shoulders