adolescence
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A moment gives life
Twists us to pain
Grants us reward
Redemption
A moment strips us of dreams not yet had
And sure enough we can all fall in collective defeat
To think of spring
in the dewy, humid morning
when love is brand new
and cherished like the sky of blue
she walks in front of you
not knowing where to begin
and where to end
she lends
The maple seed hangs tight against the wind
But a gust comes through and it can hold no longer
It flies, dancing and twirling on the breeze
Pirouetting over fields and forests
girl to woman, where does it begin?
how can we know which phase we are in?
in a woman, wisdom, in a girl, curiosity.
but in both, strength is a shared quality.
i find in myself in each new moment,
Plant a kiss
On whoever’s forehead you can
Without awakening
The more goodbyes the better,
But too many
On those who care too much
Èṣù,
I remember you incited my triskaidekaphobia
after striking me as I stood, dead
center, in a vacillating road
On the eve of my thirteenth birthday.
I have never done this before.
It's a calm autumn afternoon in my high school foods room.
I'm volunteering for a children's cooking class by helping them cut their apples.
When I was 2 my sister was born and I was no longer a baby.
When I was 4 my brother was born and by then I could change a diaper.
At 8 people always said how mature and grown up I was, what a help, a second set of hands.
The day I grew pessimistic of the world
I knew I could longer run under my mother’s breast and curl
The moment I felt the undefined shadow pierce my heart
I remember being 12
going to the movies with friends
the purity of not knowing
the simplicity of worrying about
what others thought of me.
I remember being 16
I always spoke my mind and said what I believed necessary to be said.
When I caught mom in a drunken lie, I confronted her and argued with her.
I never minded staying up late on school nights to engage mom in a screaming match.
Welcome to the old me
where days of freedom were abundant
where was I free to do as I pleased
where I was enveloped in disregard
for other’s opinions
where I was more of myself than I was of them
I never had a say
in anything.
I had to be quite,
submissive,
complaint.
Poor child me,
I believed I could trust him,
Was told I had to,
told he was my father.
I had to listen to him,
The long anticipated magic of chewing those light up Canadian candies in the dark
and the zipline propelling me over the treetops and
the cutting and opening up of the squid,
soiled by my pee in my pants.
The first time I grew up,
I was ten years old.
I was wearing a blood red dress
And a wide-eyed, prepubescent smile.
My mother bought me ice cream
We bat our lashes in secret
Hoping for tall, dark (black) and handsome to feel the signal miraculously
And come swooping in to take us home, nestling us in ever lasting
Lust
That wretched table
Stunted, hunkering low,
Plotting to maim me at the knees,
Gripped by grubby hands and crusty crumbs,
Waiting for me to shrink my self esteem
Potential.
There is an anxiety that is associated with this word. This ear piercing, nauseating, word that is so gently tossed around.
As soon as this word leaves lips I forget faces and panic sets in.
Every weekday is agony.
Dread the time it takes to learn.
Beg the clock to tick faster.
Get on your knees and pray
to a being that you’ll soon forsake.
They say 17 is a number associated with spiritual growth
Next month, I advance to a new chapter, a new 18
So I reflect on what’s changed and what’s remained
When I was little,
I used to be afraid of
the dark.
I was afraid of all kinds of things:
spiders,
vampires,
snakes, and
A gnashing cruelty and an
unfading whine like
A VCR spilled over with vase-water,
Keeps the shadowed part of me
Beating;
It is not a reflection of the
Upbringing that
Right, veering right,Left, swooping left.Orange cones, white lines, speed bumps
Preventing me from zooming so fast.But I wouldn't because... I know me.
Dirty blonde hair that was always greasy because
your family had one bathroom
with six
seven
eight people
and you always came last to every single one.
Sisters' boyfriends and strange neighbors
In the garden of life
There were four flowers
Unlikely to be seen growing together
Yet they all stood out amongst the weeds
She was strong, though I first considered her weak
She taunted and teased; laughing maliciously at all of your flaws
She broke you down and watched the tears well up in your eyes
Once upon a time,
in a land far away, kids
slept more than five hours a night. Kids
had more than a cup of coffee for breakfast. Kids
hung out with their friends after school.
we are children in the dark,
only able to see by the light
of the reflections of our skin in the moonlight.
Spoken Intro:
“All of a sudden, it’s like you’ve become aware of your own existence, how unwhole you are.
And you’re constantly being reborn...
Again...
And again...
And again...
And again.
Days feel like weeks
Weeks feel like months
Months feel like years
Years feel like forever
Forever is a long time
Till I can climb into your arms
I need someone to hold me tight
Time is a peculiar thing.
Units of time are always the same,
But isn’t it funny how some years feel longer than others.
Objectively they aren’t,
But I’m not objective.
And so it is,
They say the young have a flame within them.
But I think they need that flame to keep themselves warm,
Stretching their cold, old hands out to my fire to stop the numbness.
Little do they know,
Few things shape a persons psyche
In a year like a lover
and the first to entice thee
Sixteen shaped me through a love I lost
At the time keeping up no matter the cost
The birth of my brother
Denying my strong suits
every aspiration
strong enough to motivate
two young arms and a heart
clutching for success
In a world so full of pressure
all fallen on my chest.
Each lungful of desperation
I gaze upon you, and what is it I see?
An expression? A soul? No, it is only a body.
I listen to your word, I know your mind to be strong
But reflective, slow persuasion
Prove my thoughts and feelings wrong.
'Seize the day' they say,
or else you'll fade away.
This is the final age,
before we take the stage.
The golden age of seventeen,
we dance in childhood's final scene,
PART I:
just.
one.
breath.
For that is all it takes
-In and out-
To escape the chaos
and relieve the doubt.
It was grandpa’s old cigar box
with my name inked on it in green
When opening that rusty latch
A flush of grandpa released;
Cigar smoke
A little girl with a neatly tied bonnet eagerly gathers the strawberries.
She rejoices the growing collection in her pail.
Except the little girl is a young woman now.
The most stupid thing ive ever seen People acting rude and mean Looking for happiness in other people's sorrow I hope that this will change tomorrow
I am skeptical of norms
In my household
I couldn’t bring myself to become included
in a lifestyle of submissiveness
If you had stayed away
I might have made it
Through all the twisting turns of adolescence
A little bruised and bloody,
But mostly unscathed.
But if you had stayed away,
I wouldn't know how to fight.
Running scared down Defeatist Street,
Trying to go back in time.
Retreating isn’t security,
Especially since I out grew mine.
I wish I could be me again,
Feeling free to run and wonder.
My mind tends to focus on the past;
So hard that the present is often blurred, giving reality the chance to once again take its toll on my peace of mind.
There was once a time I came out of my shell-
Fully disposed to the endless joy and optimism
The world had to offer.
But like a falling star, I fell-
I fell to the ground of the Earth, then to the
We exist helplessly,
acting how we want to be.
Pursuing this endeavor,
to become something better.
Moral fall behind us,
money for the poisonous.
Trading lust for love,
dazed by what's above.
Tossed around,crumpled up,never pleasing,always an inconvenience.With predetermined liveswe are disposed ofat someone else's discretion.We are free, yet fragilelike young leaves,
Torn between fitting in and standing out.
Torn between what's right and what's wrong.
Torn between agreeing and disagreeing.
Torn between family and friends.
Torn between who I might be and who I want to be.
If I could just write
A simple word or two
Something on a piece of paper
To convience one of my story
The Magic is gone, I said
As I looked up at the kingdom
Tiered like a cake with its blue and white frosting
I stood there, I stared
The magic no longer lived there
Pavement painted black
The first time I met you I thought little of you
Now I know you for you
I like you
It's been eight years since then,
I love you
We started as friends
then best friends
then sisters
just seeing him makes me angry
just seeing his greying hair,
his yellow and brown teeth
that cost 10,000 dollars to replace
last time
his thinning body
simply
let me say two words
I'm sorry
And you can try me, yes try me
'Cause I promise you I'm tryin myself
Tryna hid my own Identity
I am your babygirl
And I know thats what I'll always be
i'm sixteen years old, and it's nothing like they said it would bethere are no wild parties and fun hangouts,only excuses for people to get fucked up and shit-faced.
Me peeling fingers,
ripped from innocence,
diving into adolescence.
What is it that makes them this way?
The fall from ideals,
the way my skin peels,
and cracks and drys like never before.
i dream of happier days:before the cell phone,her now-constant companion.before computers, iPods.before she caredabout how she looks.about fitting in,conforming.back when a night light
I have these words swirlingaround, all my thoughts twirling. I rarely have a chanceto let these pieces sit, to dance. Because the very moment Ilet my thoughts be, for a fraction of a
You captured my heart from the start
With your sense of humor you filled my heart
Oh but I didn’t want to admit it to myself or anyone else
I thought that I was normalThe average teenagerWho stressed about the futureThat loomed on my horizonAnd watched Pixar moviesAnd had nerf gun warsBecause adulthood was waitingTo snatch my childhood up
My dark god
standing in front of our feeble minds
as He feeds us brainless material
over the matter of
civil rights.
But nothing seems civil about this.
And He preaches these
Opening the doors and sliding onto black leather seats.
Squinting as sunlight reflects off of the sunglasses hanging on your rearview mirror.
There were
a million thousand hundred shadow birds that
perched across a single tree on the far side of a
silent muddled winter-freeze lake.
Black feathered wings scraped across
Ah, adolescence.
A remarkably awkward time.
“Oh, she’s hot!” “He freakin’ smells!” “Has that always been there?”
Many thoughts—
Some vocalized, some not—
Rush through youngsters’ heads.
"End of the River"
I can’t see,
Please!
What’s to be?
It’s known, what could,
Living in the woods.
"You're Special"
That's what he said
But what you said was
that I have better things
to do with my life
But life is meant to be spent
with happiness all around
Not everyone gets this opportunity
to find someone like you
I take it all in; One day at a time
But you're always on my mind
¡Oh it's just a first love!
But no matter what place it's in
It's Love
You make me happy
And what's more important
than that
It's a fact - happiness makes
the world go 'round
That's why I always want
you around me
I dont care what they say,
Tell Me
Is this wrong
Is this typical
tested, tried, & true
It makes me blue
with fear; this tested
tried, & true
It feels so right
But ...is this wrong
Follow me back to a moment in time
A memory for me. In a crypt. In my mind.
Waiting for him, it's an hour past five
In comes Drew with his broken blue eyes.
He sits across me in a cold seat that grinds,
Ask me who I am, and I will not hear you,
for I am deep within this crowd calling out my own name.
I will not know the sound of my own voice
until it whispers back.
Until then, I will spend my hours
A broken girl you see
with a flawed family
she hides up in a tree
playing hide and seek
too old now for the games
she is consumed by all the flames
the girl she wants to be
Swelling and beating when I think of you
It's as if I envision you here fingers tangled and all
My heart selfishly desires to be melted with yours
Past heartaches never mend and for a boy his heart never bends
My mind is broken full of tears a never ending storm of stress and anger. My brain a continuous rain cloud My mental and emotional state is shattered beyond repair.
Gliding along the wooden planks
As coals of emerald
Kindled his face
I caught a glimpse of a transfiguration.
Soft winds swept up my cotton skirt
Past polished shoes and mounds of earth.
I'm not one for cramped spaces.
Four walls and a floor feel more
like a handicap than a home,
but if touch is still a sense,
and my fingers tell me that it is,
then my nerves make focal points of compression.
My insides are screaming.
I can feel my soul quake within its fragile cage.
Who am I?
With my face buried deep in the crackling soil of my hands, I weep to replenish the earth.
My elbows crack and whimper.
Neon lights at dusk. Spinning silhouettes in the dirt, a cigarette butt on rusted paint. The tribal fringe and fireworks. The smells of hay and grease.
Confusing, oh how confusing
The real world settling in
when they get closer they still are refusing
Age brings pain
But also brings wisdom
Although things are never the same
I want to defy gravity
I want to touch the sky
I want to float through the air
I want to be visible to human eye
