Young Writers Society

Seventeen lingers around my form, like bits of dew
On the freshly mown grass of my front lawn.
I turned seventeen yesterday, and I have not yet
Figured out how the title fits me.

What does it even mean, this twisting number
That alights and disappears like a hummingbird
Beautiful wings flying faster than I can see
Can I pinpoint the heart of this age, this abstraction?

At times, it is calm. My hair tangled in the grass
I can almost feel the earth rotating under my head
Or maybe that’s just the sound of myself growing up
Slowly, oh so slowly, and then all at once.

At times, it is chaos. The squirrels run over my legs
And the leaves settle around my overgrown fingernails
I can see time slipping, and I think of all I have missed
Crying desperately over the woes of adolescence.

At times, it is uncertainty. I turn to the hanging trees
And ask their shapely boughs to predict what new wrinkles
Will mar the innocence of my doe-like eyes. Will I return
To the shape of my childhood, or will I find a new one?

No voice brings clarity, no thought signals the dawn,
While questions trickle like a stream into an ocean.
Yet, with the fragile balance of untried youth, I go on
Praying my ignorance need not hinder me.