In the poem “Evaporate”, by Sarah Kay, she speaks upon her present self talking about how fast time is moving and reflects on how rapidly she has grown up, along with the significance in which her life has changed over the years. These sudden realizations were caused by her interactions with a little girl, in the sixth grade that she met. In the poem, Kay felt that she had lost control of life, and felt that the girl initially saw her as a grey cloud. This was shown in the sixth stanza, when she said, “It sounded like she said she wasn’t the sick grey which made me think that is what she thought I was.”
The overarching theme of “Evaporate” by Sarah Kay is that she was entirely engulfed in sadness, simply due to her loss of control of time and how it has made her feel as if time has flown by. This powerful poem can be easily related to the song “Never Grow Up” By Taylor Swift. In this song, Swift also describes the sensation of growing up and missing her younger experiences. For example, a lyric she often repeats is “I wish I’d never grown up”. This line clearly demonstrates upset feelings in regards to looking back on her childhood and the things that would come with it. One representation of her missing parts of her childhood is, “You’re in the car on the way to the movies and you’re mortified your mom’s droppin’ you off”. This shows she was nervous, when she was younger, which relates to Kay’s poem as they were eager to grow up, but looking back on it, they wished they had taken things slower.
In conclusion, Sarah Kay’s poem expresses her opinions on how fast time moves as you grow up. She describes the time leaving like it is “evaporating” away from her, just as water evaporates into the invisible air. This is similar to Taylor Swift’s song, which is about the thoughts that come across your mind when you become an adult. Both of these convey a theme of feeling melancholy about growing up and reflecting on your childhood. Additionally, they both come from a woman’s point of view which gives a relatable feeling to a lot of young adult women reading and listening, who probably relate. This powerful feeling gained by readers can be shown in the poem, where Sarah Kay encounters a young girl that really makes her realize how grown up she is. “Never Grow Up” is in second person and is talking all about a little girl and following her as she goes through childhood. Taylor Swift also talks to her younger self, saying, “Don’t you ever grow up. Just stay this little”, while Kay says she is “watching parts of me evaporate”. They are both watching back on their lives, and their lives when they were younger, and reflecting on how they got to where they are now.
