I wish adults still understood what it was like to be our age because yes, I'm going through phases and relationships and change and I smell disgusting and I am going through depression and I am transgender and discovering what that means and learning what it means to be a person, something that some people never learn. I don't understand why the people who seem to care about me aren't the same people I want to visit constantly. I don't understand the concept of 'blood is thicker than water' when the full phrase is 'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb' and why adults use this to their advantage. It's not unhealthy to want to have a social life and go hang out with people all the time. These are the same adults that say I don't get out much and need to hang out with people more often on the occasion that I'm not doing anything. The same adults that have convinced me that I need to go to college and simultaneously have fifty-plus years of experience for a decent paying company to employ me. The same adults who have given me such a crippling anxiety and fear of the unknown that I've cried multiple times over homework thinking that not being able to understand quadratic equations will be my undoing, that there's no way I'm going to college now. I am so terrified to not go to college, yet I find myself unable to think of what exactly I want to do. Rather than letting me figure it out eventually, I am being rushed into roles that I don't even understand yet. I am being scared shitless over things that I don't need to worry about for years. I am being convinced not to legally change my name until after college because otherwise my boomer aunt and uncle won't pay my college funds. It feels like I'm being forced back into the closet, forced into a career that I may or may not enjoy doing for the rest of my life, forced into both solitude and society according to my parent's terms, forced into something I don't understand. This is not consensual. This is far from okay.

I stayed in bed today
Because I was scared
of how other people
would see me.

I fear how the
world sees me.

I want to be seen
For who I am
And who I want to be,
Not who I am told to be.

That is no life
Worth living.

Our parents are
There to guide us
Not dictate us
And neglect our needs.

So why do they act like
we're dangerous to ourselves?

We may not always know
Exactly who we are, but
They don't always know either.
What does age have to do with it?

Refuse to be
Someone you're not.

Stand up to false reality!
Stand up for your beliefs!
Be who you are and step into the
shoes you were meant to fill!

All things that come to pass
Will someday go;
But, when exactly that is,
No one will know.

Stay away, love
You burn me,
Hurt me
With your touch.

Look away, love
You tempt me,
Lure me
With your body.

Keep away, love
For I am afraid
Of the effect you have on me.