Things They Never Tell You About
by Sabrina Azadzoi, Minaret College
Years 9 – 10 Performance Poetry Finalist
They never tell you
that childhood does not disappear in a single breath.
It does not collapse down like thunder,
nor announce its departure with a final farewell.
It is more like fruit left quietly on the branch,
ripening before you realise it is time to let it go.
They never tell you
that innocence is not taken away by age alone,
but by the moments that force you to understand
what you were never ready to know.
A single conversation.
A single silence.
A single bite into something so bitter
that ultimately divides life into before and after.
They never tell you that suffering creates its own language.
A language particularly spoken in hospital corridors,
beneath artificial blank lights
where shadows linger longer than people do.
Where time becomes a contradiction—
the clock continues its endless march,
yet the heart remains suspended
between fear and hope,
like fruit caught between ripening and decay.
While others counted their childhoods
through seasons, celebrations, and careless laughter,
i was called from waiting rooms,
and approaching footsteps echoing
through wide unfamiliar halls.
They never tell you
that growing up is not measured by birthdays,
but by the moments
when the world reveals its cruelty
and asks you to keep loving it anyway.
Because perhaps life is like fruit:
sweetness is never promised
without the possibility of bitterness.
Often, it is the quiet moments—
the whispered fears, the invisible battles,
People call it resilience,
as though courage is a gift
given only to the extraordinary.
Perhaps it is something created
when ordinary people are placed in extraordinary circumstances.
They see the smile and praise the bravery.
But they never see the invisible wars beneath the surface.
And maybe this is the lesson hidden within every tragedy:
that sorrow and beauty are not enemies.
They exist together, like shadows and sunlight, like bitterness and sweetness.
Sometimes, it is a quiet decision to wake up again.
To keep searching. To keep loving. To keep living.
And perhaps the greatest truth they never tell you
is that survival is not the ending of the story.
It is the opening chapter of discovering what it truly means to be alive.