#growing_up

She was seven, Searching for princess dresses And butterfly clips, While trying to reach for stars On her father’s shoulders Seeing the World through the kaleidoscope of Fairytales; Wondering, if there was a big bad wolf out there? Wondering, if shoes really made finding Love so easy? Wondering, if swans could really live amongst the ducks of the World? She was ten, Scribbling secret notes In…

Growing up is scary

Not because of the physical changes in our bodies

Though those make us scared too...that's for another poem

It's scary because we don't know what lies on the other side of us

What this boy

What this girl

What this child will become

Will he become the type of man who is big and surly

And doesn't care at all for opinions that aren't his

Just likes those regurgitated from a woman or child's throat

Tells the child 'don't speak, don't speak, don't speak' Be quiet

You're not allowed to think for yourself or feel angry or hurt when I say or do things to make you angry or hurt

You're just allowed to live to be a child which means to be a shadow

And to live in the shadows, and grow in the shadows

Will she be a woman who smacks the face of anyone who dares to make her uncomfortable

With the truth

Who strips the skin that covers them and spills their flaws out of her perfect cauldron of memory

That has no space for memories that make her look bad

Who feels that opinions are signs that you're trying to make her feel small and unintelligent

And so forces them down your throat and keeps them anchored there with threats and guilt-trips around the globe

Will this child grow to be everything he hates?

Everything that hurt him? Everything that drained him of his potency, that made him a zombie? Will he still be a zombie who's always waiting to be filled with the things childhood stole from him?

Will he steal the beauty from other childhoods just to fill the holes in himself?

Will we perpetuate the cycle of girl becomes woman of boy becomes man without having truly passed the first stage because the "correct" answers in all the quizzes

Were engraved and if you wrote something else, you failed

Were labelled rebellious, deviant, defiant, rude, stubborn, ungrateful

And if you stayed between the lines you were still doing it wrong

Will we raise the next generation of confused children who need psychiatrists and pills and sad music or angry music or a gun tucked in the waist, or a knife tucked in the waist or hidden under their tongue

Being provoked by anything that resembles unblemished opinions, not coloured by fear or the need to please?

What will this boy

What will this girl