The hissing of the kettle foreshadows your feet lunging from the bed. You walk steadily upon the cold tiles of your dingy apartment to pour the steaming water into your favorite mahogany tea pot. Adding bags of tea and drizzling an excessive amount of honey into the pot, your hand carrying the tea leads the way as you hold it like a lamp in front of you as a guide.

The world is starting to feel darker to you.

Living in the riot of routine, the ebb and flow of habits mock you, and the necessity for repetition in schedule chastises, screaming the futility of life.

As in a dark tunnel lit by occasional torches, you live through this. It simply is. Life simply happens, does it not?

You see your time reduced to a document. Segmented hour by hour. School from 9-10:30, 11:30-12:20, 12:30-1:20, work from 2-7, homework from 7:30-9… You see your existence barred by numbers and lines.

Consequences come to you when routine isn't pertained to.

You're young. You thrive in excitement for the next, new thing. Uncertainty revives and gives you space to live in the way you think life is meant to be lived.

Your eyes shine bright with the knowledge that you don't know a thing or two about another thing or two. A smile steals its way upon your face as you don't realize the laughter escaping your lips.

Sipping your tea, you notice your room has gotten darker. The light from your computer doesn't seem as clear with the yellow-orange desk light shining towards it. Your window is open, but you didn't notice that the sunny afternoon had shifted to grey skies as you were attending to your responsibilities.

The sound of a bell glistens in the air. Looking out the window, you're instantly filled with glee. It's raining. An incessant down pouring, the skies are washed in a heavenly drought.

You trade your sweatpants for the white dress hanging in your closet. Pulling out the clip holding your hair up, you walk transfixed out of your apartment. You don't notice how the tiles have gotten colder since your walk this morning.

Flinging the door open, your feet know what to do before your mind can tell them otherwise.

You race the rain and the wind. You haven't decided on where you're going. "But do I go anywhere, or do I stay where the rain is known?"

Let's travel to the in-between, where the hissing of the rain and softness of the dew on the grass have met.

Where Freedom lingers and Revival is drunk.

As ambrosia of the gods, let us find this place of merriment and mystery of the ridiculousness of light giggles and a freshly washed face.

Responsibilities aside, may we enjoy this quick thing called Youth. A pixie fluttering in and out of our fingers as we work towards the duties of Age, learning to comprehend the weight time flaunts to those who walk outside of a present moment to search the skies for answers to questions that haven't yet been conceived.

You spin and spin and spin and dizziness moves you to happy tears as large, cumbersome steps are taken in effort to steady yourself.

The bell's sound sparkles again.

The world seems lighter to you.

The rain has stopped.