I woke up today,
17 for the last time
feeling normal, nothing special, nothing different,
not really.
A bitter nostalgia, maybe
Maybe the sky won't be as resplendent in an adult's eyes,
no longer as brilliant or bursting with color at ripping seams of laughter

Anyway
I woke up today, still 17
Fumbled around for my pants, threw sweaters aside as I anticipated the intransigent rain
Didn't do my makeup because I didn't care,
Ran out the door with chocolate as a spontaneous breakfast because
my metabolism flew on the wings of my brilliant youth
and I thought I'd never die.

Got to class at 8:02, there was a guest speaker on environmental law and
I ripped out my eyelash
It was an accident but
The ghost of the pain crushed my eyelids for the next period
I painted a peacock in art class, smeared goldenrod across its cashmere feathers
Broke off more blocks of chocolate
Sat next to an ex, so young, thinking that this was
my first and last great love
and still
foolishly hoping for another chance

In band, filled with inexpliciable anxiety about
a competition that didn't even matter
and I'd thought
in life, the biggest worry that I would ever have was
an oboe performance
in the rain.

Laughed until I cried in English class,
Debating on the merits of design and scrolling more miles on my phone than I'd ever walk

Went home and ate ramen so spicy my eyes watered with painful fire, looked at fireflies and realized
as surely as I knew the skies were blue
that one day I would die
and everything that I knew to exist and to be true
would be gone
and everything that made me and myself would vanish
and I would never wake up again

and being 18 was only another step towards
being scattered to the wind in grey soot, over the mountains of China
ambrosia on my lips and nothing in my eyes
heart loud in silence and fierce in stubborness
Not willing to beat
one
more
time.