turning 20

a poem that touches on the way growing up feels when you feel like nothing around you is changing and dislike the person you are.

it is my 20th birthday this week and I have never felt more childish,
I was always told I was mature for my age,
but I feel like I know less now than I did at 13,
yet simultaneously I feel like I am eternally, trapped at age 14,

it feels both like so much has changed and nothing at all,
while it feels time has flown by , every day felt like it was never going to end,
the only reason looking back at it feels like yesterday is because for me nothing has changed,
nothing ever changes,
I am still the same self destructive, ever disruptive, ruiningly impulsive, counter-productive person I was 6 years ago,

my haphazard attempts to grow up have all been futile,
but don’t mistake this as me claiming to be youthful,
it is far from that, I had age forced upon me as a child,

no,
i am lost,
i am scared,
I am angry.

I am both prideful and terrified of the person I was,
the person I became and still am,
the person I will become when time starts moving again,

I am different but the exact same,
I swapped out my bad habits for things more age appropriate,
but the underlying reason,
the way I am a hindrance to myself,
the way I am merely a product of my own hubris, stays the same,
the only difference now is I don’t have immaturity to blame it on,

my instability is no ones fault but my own and I don’t know how to change that,
I don’t know how to be an adult when I never got to be a child,
I am very aware of my own short comings,
I am aware of my own inadequacy,

but self awareness is a problem in and of itself,
because being aware of a problem doesnt make it go away,
now I’m just self loathing too.
now i despise myself too,

but it’s my birthday on Wednesday and I will order desert at the restaurant,
which is something I would not have done at age 14.

Author's Note

this poem was written to be a spoken word piece. i wrote it 3 days before my 20th birthday because i was really struggling with the idea of aging when i felt like i hadn’t grown as a person since i was a teenager.
the poem itself is also a symbol to me that things have changed even if i can’t see it because i wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until i was 15 so i would not have even been able to write this poem when i was 14.