I encounter so much within my life
& I'm becoming tired of adults looking
down & stating how I must not know
anything.

I have gone through so much more than
I'm sure they would like to imagine.

I had to witness many deaths, I've had to
watch a meaningless war on the news
channels. I've had a broken home, a broken
heart (too many times), and quite a few
words of wisdom spat into my eyes from
rude teachers.

I have made mistakes & I have accepted
all my consequences for them. Does that not
make me mature? No, nothing but an
obediant child, willing to obey it's master
with each passing demand spilt from lips.

& So maybe I haven't matured fully, but you
ask too much of a seventeen year old. I am
still growing, learning, but I do so with a
wisdom most my age have yet to obtain.

Maybe I'm still a child, by law, it's non-negotiable.

But in my mind, I feel I have grown so many
years that many adults have yet to have
met.

I know I need to fall to get back up, & I know I
have to do what I need to do. Take me from
my prison, take me from my crib and place me
in the park with the slides and monkey-bars.

Turn your lazy eyes away from me and trust me
to make my own decisions. I don't need you to
hold my hand anymore. I'm a big girl.

& You need to stop acting so big yourself.

We are all children in the eyes of something more.