Oh, Simple Thing, Where Have You Gone?

Oh Simple Thing, Where Have You Gone? - Nishka Bijumalla (Oswego East High School, Twelfth Grade)

The days used to stretch out,

like slow-moving clouds drifting across the sky,

nothing pulling me,

nothing demanding more.

I remember days in sepia hues,

an old movie flickering through my mind.

Now, everything is too bright,

colors too loud,

edges too sharp.

The air feels distorted,

the shapes are all wrong,

and nothing fits quite right.

“Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?

The question lingers in silence,

fading like traces of a dream

that slip away the moment I wake.

I miss the days when time didn’t race ahead,

when the world moved with a steady rhythm,

when the sun felt soft,

when the weight of it all didn’t cling so heavily.

Now, I don’t know where I’m headed,

but I’m no longer who I was.

The force of the unknown presses on me,

like the constant pressure of endless choices,

the heaviness of an uncertain future,

stretching me in different directions,

making each step feel like a battle against quicksand.

But I keep moving,

even as the weight threatens to swallow me whole,

because stopping feels like losing myself.

Somewhere, deep inside,

I’m still reaching for that simple thing —

the quiet, the familiar,

the place where everything makes sense,

where I could simply be,

untouched by the weight of it all.