I hate it when adults,

Think they know who you are

They think they can look at you and know what kind of person you are

They think they can look at your grades

And decide the road your life will take

I hate it when adults,

Pressure me to choose

How am I to decide my future when you've given me so little help?

How am I supposed to figure out what I want to be in such a vast world,

When I've seen almost none of it?

I hate it when adults,

Choose not to see past your grades, or your skin, or your background

To see the person you really are

How can you really know who I am?

You don't know anything about my life outside of school

I could be happy, but you wouldn't see it

Past the look of stress that seems to be my face for those seven hours of school.

I could be hurting, but you wouldn't know it

Past the look of normalcy I've perfected for you adults who never look deeper.

All you see is a student among many and your problems are too plenty

To worry about mine

How can you really know who I am?

If you don't know my favorite books or movies?

If you don't know the songs stuck in my head?

You couldn't possibly know me because you don't even know my little brother's name,

and you don't get why I sometimes choose to sit and read instead of do my homework.

How can you truly know me if you don't know what I look like

Padding barefoot in my kitchen on a Sunday morning?

Or why my eyes are puffy from crying on a Monday morning?

The answer is simple, you don't really know me. And you don't really want to.

I am not my test scores, my grades, my demerits, or my record.

I am my hopes, my dreams, and my aspirations.

I am a hundred things, but you choose to see the thousands of things that I am not.

So how can you really know who I am?