I change each year just a little,
Shedding the skin I grew to know.
That's part of growing up,
You reap what you sow.

I have freedom now,
But I miss the structure of the past.
Does that make me weak,
To want something to last?

Things look different to me, now,
The world shifting around me.
I recognize none of this,
And yet memories only make me bleed.

Is it wrong to miss the chaos?
Is it wrong to want to go back?
I grew up in fear,
I was always under attack,

I'm not sure how to exist without the chaos.
I don't know how to make it through.
I used to have dreams, plans,
But deep down I knew.

This was my fate all along.
To forget myself at last.
Everything has fallen apart;
Turned to shattered glass.

I fear these goodbyes
for when I return
time will have passed
and I don’t expect
You to wait

but how I wish
I didn’t have to wait
to come back

I must leave
and I know
You don’t understand
why
but I must

I am in
a season
of waiting

now let's convene a table
about the best mamma-mug and idle
steak knives from a wedding never better severed
in m'acrimonious divorce. let's

chit-chat about the diaper pail of
politics and the **** that children under 2 have a
disgusting habit of bringing
to the fetid stir
of middle-somethings—

let's this and that, and on, and oh! you first!
and I can't agree more! and should we
have another pour?—yes, yes, yes, let's
do!—and hey, I have something
prescient to say...

—but why start now?
another pour, another kid, another pail,
another fetid downpour of adulting—
to hell with revelations on the lam.

Now I can go to jail
Have for myself, a bad name
If I take the wrong steps
And follow evil men

One that I would carry with me for the rest of life, in shame
One that would follow me till I join my brothers in Hades
I fear for I will soon be leaving the teens
But no worries, for I am still a kid to Him

Now I can serve life imprisonment
For murdering a soul whether I did or did not, since I was there
Now I am a man
What will I grow up as?

A bad or a good one?
I do not know and can not say what I want
For the world is all wrong
And what they see as good is actually not

I am becoming eighteen
I will no longer be known as a teen
But an adult
Who would learn from people and life, all sorts

Welcome to the world, son
Say this to me for
all I did in the past was learn
Now we’ve gotta put what we learnt to fend for ourselves

In this market of life,
We’ve gotta struggle to not get behind
Life’s gonna move on whether we like it or not
Whether or not we want it to be solved.

Now I know no thing,
Yet, I plan to and will learn every thing
All I wish to happen, I will do them
And not like them, complain rather than make wishes real.

I am and will always be ME,
May He help me.
Amen.

©Emmiasky Ojex
From FOR BOYS TURNING MEN (the personal version)

Above the wind plains roaring white
With lightning crack's climaxing light
In the prepubescent gloom
Of fear, excitement, unrealized doom
The moon appears in cloudy skies
With blissful sighs as knowledge dies

****** grasses ripped from home
As breeze embraces seed and blows
To new beginnings and new ends
Where e'er the Fates may deign to send
A rose's bud seeps from below
Mixed with sticking undertones

When innocence concedes the stage
To reside in maturation's cage
And foolish fancy takes to flight
The sun forever fades to night

somewhen
in the vast crumbling timeline of the universe
13-year-old me is wondering
whether i exist.
4 years is a long time,
after all,
maybe enough to choose the exit,
leave the stage,
throw away everything
she is currently trying to hold together.

but here i am,
after all,
so she must have made it;
trekked through the perilous path of the future,
which is just another word for the unknown
which is just another word for nothing,
for empty,
and made it here.
and here is not a field of green,
exactly,
but maybe an oasis in the desert.

i am proud of her, even if
it is not halfway done,
even if the road stretches dark and endless,
even if she has brought with her nothing
but fistfuls of doubt
all her stupid starving for reassurance—
will i be here in 3 years?
in 5 years?
in 10?—
like a haunting hold,
a ghost.

but we have still made it,
after all.
for me,
and my 13-year-old spectre,
the question is not
how do you see yourself in the future
or where do you think you will be by then
or even what do you want to be doing in ten
but merely

will i see myself.
will i see myself.
will i get there.

four walls surround me
my things rest on shelves
and within dresser drawers
my name is etched into the pillows
claw marks on the mattress
clothing littering the floor
specks of my dna live here
it’s been
398 days
10 hours
42 minutes
and 36 seconds
since i unpacked
and still it doesn’t feel like home
my things surrounding me
but they don’t feel like mine
the walls sigh my name
but it doesn’t sound like my name
i am a stranger in this place
a place that is supposed to feel safe
a place where i am supposed to live freely
happily
i long so desperately for a space
where i don’t solely reside within my bedroom
trapped in the confines of my bed
a space where i don’t step quietly
not wanting too much of me to be seen
a space where i can sing and dance freely
where i can etch my truth into the walls
and talk to the skeletons in my closet
a space where i don’t feel my breath is limited
careful you don’t say the wrong thing
because the walls may collapse
because the streets may become all you know
i just want a space of my own
a space where the walls sigh my name
and i can say “yes baby, i’m home”

When we were kids,
We just couldn't rest.
We'd wake up early,
Coz each day was a fest.
The younger we were,
The less we slept.
We felt waking up was better,
There was much to test!

The more we learned,
The more we knew,
The more we heard,
That more became true.
The less we observed,
The less we grew,
The less we listened,
This less became true.

We learned to wait,
We learned about patience.
We designed ourselves to fit in,
Whilst we outwaited our creations.
We began to yearn for time,
We began to yearn for another chance.
We began to yearn for what we once had,
We began to blame it on finance.

We spent our first few years unafraid,
Didn't we know then that we were in an ocean?
We didn't stop to think of that, did we?
We just continued to join the waves in motion.

We didn't know fear,
Until we reached for something others couldn't.
We didn't know fear,
Until we yearned for something others didn't.
We didn't know fear,
Until we waited in hope, whilst others didn't.
We didn't know fear,
Until the rainbows we saw weren't our own.

Now time is running out,
We're in yet another decade.
We've been through hell and back,
But we've reached this age, still afraid.
We wake up everyday with reluctance,
We don't want to face our duties.
We muster it up and turn on auto-pilot,
We let ourselves become our own refugees.

We've forgotten how we awoke,
6am every Christmas morning,
Run downstairs to see Santa's gifts,
Our tummies all butterflicious, hearts warming.
We've forgotten how we felt excited,
To face each day with the unknown
Each year taught us to be less dependent,
Leading up to the writings on our headstone.

Isn't it time we were born again, everyday?
Just so we once again embrace what we don't know?
With something new to look forward to,
Would we not find this lost joy and our own rainbow?

Isn’t is strange how we notice things when it is too late?
This is probably the last time that all of us will be in the car together. There will be no more midnight drives from hillside theatres. No more 2am dinner plans at kerbey lane.
This is the first time that I have noticed that you twirl your hair when you drive. My eyes have shifted from cityscapes flying across backseat windows to watching you wrap your hair around your finger.
It’s not slow and flirtatious, but quick and desparate, as if you're trying to distract yourself from the fact that we are growing up. It’s making me anxious, but I can’t look away.
This is the first time that I noticed the change in our silence. We are driving down nearly empty highways, and we are leaving behind our time. We are no longer laughing, and this silence doesn’t feel like it usually does. For once, none of us have anything to say. Or maybe, we know that there is not enough time to say all of the things that we should and want to say.
This is when I noticed how much I love driving down empty highways at midnight. Everything is slow, there is no rush, and, for once, there are no expectations of me.
I am finally, truly noticing that there will never be enough time to tell you all that I love you,
to hear you talk about science,
to hear about your travels,
to talk to you about your struggles,
to drive, and laugh, and cry with you,
to watch you twirl you hair.
Now, we have grown up, and our distances will strain our years of friendships,
and there will never be enough time with you.