#thislifeilive

So I was sitting on my roof watching the city lights, thinking this is my favorite spot in the world. Listening to the wind hit the panels on my roof, smells of lavender creep up my nose. I see cars moving fast and rushing to their own worlds, their little kitchens and wooden bookshelves. Looking up, seeing these stars full of memories. I like to think they are looking down on me with ease. For This is the last hour I’ll be 17. And I’ve declared myself to be better.

Not better than I am now but better than I will be.

I remember most of my birthdays, ones filled with love and happiness and others filled with sadness and loss but at the end it was all revenge in sugar. no matter how far i get away from my younger self i am met with a day to close it off and tell me that i'm getting older. I’m listening to a song on this roof. And I like it because it’s nostalgic. Remembering my mom and when she would play it for me and my sister in the car when we were little, we would drive up and down Lamar. Till Smells chased us down and we wondered where they went. The air rushed quickly through our hands and the laughter traveled through the seat belts. I was younger than I am now and met with dreams of being a superhero and flying away from my parents' decaying marriage and the long fights under the kitchen lights. Although I’m becoming an adult I still hold all these years within 9, 12 and 15. Some years I wish I didn’t have to go through. Some I wish I could go through again But no matter the year it made me who I am today. I remember when I turned 12 and I met the egger hands that followed taking away my innocence with rope and sleeping pills. and the long walk home to a crying mother I’ve never told anybody this. But time moved quick and it all became a blur not being able to live in my skin. I tried touching the wings early. Then I closed my eyes, counted to 5 and turned 17

Time gave me everything then took it away

17 filled with lots of change that I hope to leave behind for tomorrow I’ll be met with a birthday cake and I’ll look in the mirror. to grow, all my worst fears will slowly approach remembering change is the only constant i will face.

I'm forced to leave this wish behind in a cloud of worry.

Opening this present

Money will soon become my greatest ambition and my passion will be drowned out by the years that follow.

I don’t want to go to sleep just to wake up. I want to dream and feel what I’m supposed to.

Pink cigarettes and polka dot dresses.

I dream of love and being held

This war I will fight, for my life is mine and I am art that needs to be shown.

stuck in a pinhole camera I am forced to see this light

On my birthday I felt like a unicorn lost but looked at wanting to show true colors without the attention.

Like spreading wings in a Honda Civic there’s no room to grow.

I hope at 18 I’ll realize how my family shaped me and how the mirror is just a composition of everyone who’s ever loved me and everything that ever will.

I hope at 18 I’ll love again and open my heart like I used to and the days slow down so I can look at the grass and smell the stars. Dreams of a veil a kind hart coming home to my own world, little kitchens and Wooden bookshelves.

Hanging out in the backyard with friends. I hope this is what life really is and no job kills the light in my eye and the dirt in my fingernails and that I will always remember where I came from.

And who I was that made me who I am

It’s now 11:23. I feel the same but I’m too changed and that’s all I want to be. I’m happy I decided to live this long. Going to sleep soon i'll end up in a cocoon and wake up 18 years old. and everyone will say

Happy birthday.