When people get old enough,
they forget.
They forget about children
and children's ways.
But most of all, they forget
how to BE a child.
So they come up to you
In school,
At the store,
At home,
On the street,
and say things like
"You are getting so big! You are how old? Gee, I remember that age.."
And you stand there
and smile and nod
Say, "Yep. Yep. Yep. Uh-huh. Great."
because it is what you are supposed to say.
And you think,
"Wow. You are so stupid."
Because
they cannot possibly understand
The pain you are in,
The exhaustion,
The low-self esteem,
The socializing,
The dizzying questions that rage through your mind,
The worries.

Being my age means all of those things.
It means you
hurt from growing, and also from words that people fling at you, and at the newfound
responsibilities
placed without your consent
upon your shoulders.
It means you
are constantly tired
from life, from changing, and often, from just plain old lack of sleep.
It means you
have to put up with all sorts
of crap from people
that you know.
It means you have
questions and worries
constantly racing through your mind,
often causing the exhaustion aforementioned.
They don't get it.
Being a teenager means that
you are stuck with the responsiblities
of older people
but still snuggling down with your stuffed tiger at night.
Being a teenager hurts and sucks
and the only thing that keeps you going are the smiles and songs
and lights
at the end of each
l
o
n
g
tunnel
that we go through.
My life is hard at this age,
wanting to grow up
without the pain and embarrassment
of making the mistakes
that you need to make
to get there.
And also wanting to go back
to when it was as simple
as yes
or no
with no
"IDK's"
or
"IKR's"
or
"LOL's"
thrown in.

So you smile and nod
at the adult
who means well
but cannot possibly
understand
what we go through
to become
one
of
them.