What You Learned When You Were Twelve

I hurt so much at this age it almost killed me

At 12 years old

you learned the majority of stars

were already dead.

They are masters of deception

giving you hope that beauty

is permanent

and love is forever.

You learned that love

is too often a lie

and promises find themselves

shattered on linoleum floors

that you step on in the night.

At twelve,

you learned that your bones are fragile

paper thin like the birth certificate

you’ve never seen,

buried under other things

you never really cared about.

You found truth

at 3 am in your bedroom

followed by rivers of tears

and open pill bottles.

You saw life

and you saw death

and sometimes those nights

when you were twelve

are the only things that make you feel

like the world is real.

When you were twelve

you found out the stars were dead.

When you were twelve

you found out that you were not.