Being Sixteen
Recently I just read something in which they described the age of sixteen as being a 'careless time'. I thought about that, and finally decided that wasn't true. At least, not to me. I'm sixteen now. I know what it feels like.
It feels like I should be older but I'm not and I'm being stifled and pressed and left behind, because my closest friend(s?) is/are so very much older and they've all gone away to university or wherever and into an elsewhere I can't go and even when I do they'll still be far away and far ahead.
Sixteen is holding back and making sure I don't scare everyone away, so I have to keep quiet and down so that the drab birds I'm watching don't take flight and flee. It's keeping everything of me behind locked doors so that they don't take me back to the hospital or somewhere worse, or diagnose me again, or put me back on medication. Sixteen is reading teen magazines and wondering at the gaudy fakeness of it all, and how it's a world I've never entered nor seen and marveling at the stereotypes I've only seen but never felt or touched. Sixteen is watching boys carefully and wondering why anyone would want to date them at the high school age since they're either very immature or unattractive, and crushing on older men (mostly), or guys who don't exist except in literature. Sixteen is all about holding back and wondering where my motivation and dreams went.
Sixteen is waking up each morning wondering why I'm not seventeen yet.
It feels like I should be older but I'm not and I'm being stifled and pressed and left behind, because my closest friend(s?) is/are so very much older and they've all gone away to university or wherever and into an elsewhere I can't go and even when I do they'll still be far away and far ahead.
Sixteen is holding back and making sure I don't scare everyone away, so I have to keep quiet and down so that the drab birds I'm watching don't take flight and flee. It's keeping everything of me behind locked doors so that they don't take me back to the hospital or somewhere worse, or diagnose me again, or put me back on medication. Sixteen is reading teen magazines and wondering at the gaudy fakeness of it all, and how it's a world I've never entered nor seen and marveling at the stereotypes I've only seen but never felt or touched. Sixteen is watching boys carefully and wondering why anyone would want to date them at the high school age since they're either very immature or unattractive, and crushing on older men (mostly), or guys who don't exist except in literature. Sixteen is all about holding back and wondering where my motivation and dreams went.
Sixteen is waking up each morning wondering why I'm not seventeen yet.