22

so this is the last day, last night i am 22 like

the taylor swift song i danced to last year i

kept dancing between tears and sometime

last week i woke up and realised i was all

grown up, somewhere between holding the

hand of a dying John Doe and sticking my

fingers up yet another patient’s rectum someone

decided it was high time i was married and

started a family of my own and devoted my life

to some man but how to pick one man to devote

my life to a life to be spent in service to others am i

too old for a dream? is this growing up is? to

realise that the world is too big, that you are

too small, that nothing really matters, that we

are irrelevant, that nobody cares, that no one is

special, that dreams are for fools.

look up, look up, the sun will rise on another

day and one day i too will not see it because now

i am grown up like someone decided too old

for dreams now so get married, get married, the

kitchen is waiting for you remember your old

schoolfellows with children what’s wrong with

you dreamer don’t be a disappointment a failure a

failure

dreams are for children

did you really think you mattered?

confessions of an ex-teenager #129

when we had a boring class i would

take my notebook and write poems about

the teacher fighting a bunch of

gorillas or whatever caught my

fancy because we weren’t allowed

to doodle but the teachers thought i

was taking notes until one

day somebody checked my book but

i got off because they thought it was

a good poem and no one else in the

school could write like that.

confessions of an ex-teenager #768

matt wilson with the locker next

to mine would come to school with

brownies not the chocolate kind and

sell them from his locker 10 bucks

a piece and he’d go outside during

break and smoke a joint and dump his coat

that reeked of smoke and then my locker

would smell too and i always waited for the

day when i would go home and my mother

would flip because i smelled smoky even

though i never ever picked one up

honest to god but who would
believe me if i blamed someone with the name

matt wilson?

Confessions of an Ex-Teenager #546

i don’t know if you remember the day my

fish died it closed its mouth and floated up

to the top of the tank and it lay there on its

back for hours until i finally got brave and

poked it with a stick and it didn’t move and i

screamed and cried for hours because i’d

touched a dead fish and i wouldn’t eat fish

even weeks later on good friday because that

fish was more than my friend it was the first

thing i’d ever taken care of on my own and then

i killed it.

Love You, Ghost

and now i’m an adult and my childhood is

gone all of those memories all the things i did

wrong i didn’t mean to hurt you and i didn’t

want the pain but when i was much younger it

all just seemed a game and now i am an adult and now

the fun is gone all of the things i loved once they all now seem so

wrong and it was never my intention to live in hiding from the sun

but now my life is over because today i turned twenty-one.

and once i thought i loved you and i thought you’d stay with me at

least until we grew up, you’d be twenty-one when i’m twenty-three

but life and time move strangely i’m alive and you’re a ghost and

now today i’m twenty-one i’ve lost the love i loved the most.

so maybe i’ll go to your grave and i might say your name say i’m sorry

for the pain it was only just a game and maybe one day you’ll

forgive me for my sins but i won’t know it, no i won’t, because i’m human

and you’re a ghost

so forgive me ghost. i loved you so and i’m sorry that you had to go

now i’m an adult but my heart is cracked to make up for the love it lacks and

one day i might see you again in another world maybe in heaven but today

i’ll stand under the sun and whisper your name because i’m an adult and adults

don’t cry they have to stay strong even when everything is gone but i’ll still whisper

your name because now i’m twenty-one and i realise that it never should have been a

game.

No More

Two rows of Barbie dolls lie on the floor

No loving hands to hold them anymore

No little girl to tuck them into bed

Because that little girl is now dead

She grew up too quickly and learnt about life

The anger and sorrows, the nightmares and strife

She learnt about heartbreaks before she learnt about love

But now she’s with angels — she’s high, high above

Her body still dwells with us here on this earth

But her spirit has vanished, no more laughter or mirth

She’s sullen and silent, a shadow crossing the floor

And she will find happiness inside her no more

Growing Alone

Growing up is Growing Alone

And nothing is forever…

We’re children twice, and times crawls by

For the very old and the very young

But, in the middle, life’s a blur

The soul’s on fire, and love’s astir

The secrets in the dark foretold

As secrets for a soul are sold

The world’s a chase, we hurry through

Fires blazing, yet nothing to do

But in the dusk and dawn of life

Time elongates the pain and strife

The old look back on lives they knew

While children laugh their whole lives through

But the one thing they always seem to want

Is to hurry up and grow on up

But nothing is forever, you know

And growing up means growing alone

Children think growing up is exciting, everywhere

You turn is something new to see, new to do, new to be

Grown-ups can have all the fun

They can stay up all night and see the sun

Rise in the morning, then go to bed

Or watch TV, if they’d rather, instead

Or read the books on the highest shelf

Or go to the store, or the cinema, or anywhere they jolly well please.

But nothing is forever, you know

And growing up means growing alone

Once you reach a certain age

Your story is written on a different page

You’re an adult now, so act like one

Doesn’t matter if your ready, it’s what’s expected

There’s no time more to be protected

By parents and friends, so off you go

Time is moving faster, now that you know

And you might have fun, that is, until you fall

And there’s no one there waiting for you to call

At times like this, you’re realise that

You’ve finally grown up, at the drop of a hat

Everything comes together, and now you can see

Growing up isn’t everything you thought it would be

And when all the doors have locked, and all the ways are barred

You’ll realise that, maybe, you’ve been living too hard

But nothing is forever, you know

And growing up means growing alone

Freedom is Loneliness, as you stand there and watch

Everyone you ever loved leave you

Everything you ever knew change you

Yes, you’ll be free, but at a terrible price

One in which fate has already cast the dice

Do you want to be free?

You don’t have a choice.

Fate’s hand moves over the sky

And everything you ever loved tells you good-bye

A phone call tonight, and Granny is gone

Faded with the movement of another setting sun

Tomorrow, another, is it Grandpa or Ben?

Everything you ever knew changes, and then,

As soon as you move on, another disaster strikes

And the gravestones multiply in vertical stripes

You kneel in the grass, remember the day

When each of your loved ones slipped away

My brother, my sister, my neighbour, my friend

All met their makers in an untimely end

I don’t remember Brother, but I remember Sister well

And every time I hear her name, I hear the echo of a knell

It’s not just death that makes us move on, it’s life itself, too

That boy you knew in high school sure as hell won’t remember you

Yes, nothing is forever, you know,

And growing up means growing alone

One day, my parents won’t be here, and I’ll be all alone

No friends, no siblings, not even a dog to even call my own

Everyone is gone, and I’m grown up, and that’s the way things are

From now until the day I die, that’s the way things are

Growing up means looking in the mirror

And seeing the faces of the dead

Staring back at you

The faces of traitors and lovers alike

The faces of the past

The faces that didn’t last

Growing up means going to a funeral

And knowing the person who once

Lived in that body

Not just a name

Because you feel the pain

Now, you start to understand

What it means to be alone

Because you are alone

Now

You’re full grown