“i want to grow up”
ugly words passed through beautiful young lips that knew no bad
and kissed their parents to sleep every night
that licked cold ice cream on hot summer evenings and
turned purple during long wintry days spent sledding
i absorb those ugly words into my blackened soul
and let them churn in my stomach
and run through my rotten lungs that have been fed so many lies
i drove at sunset today and had to pull to the side of the road and cry
as every youthful memory i owned hit me like a wave
i remember staying out late to catch fireflies and keeping them in jars
for my own enjoyment
i visited the cemetery last week and left flowers for the girl i knew in middle school
she didn’t want to grow up either
and on the way back i stopped at the bar and drank my sorrows away
and couldnt help but remember when i was younger and wanted to be older
so my father would give me the big girl cups for my orange juice
those were the times where i ran to school and ran home because i loved both places
and i picked weeds and told them they were beautiful
i’m a weed and i need to be told i’m beautiful by every onlooker just to feel okay
when did i stop wanting to wake up in the morning
when did i stop enjoying the sunrise
when did everyone i care about leave in the shadows
when did this start happening
when
when
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125,009 Literary Works • 672,837 Reviews
Hey!
Your poem was really powerful and meaningful.
I felt some of the words were a bit overboard, but thats your writing style and added to the effect, so thats okay.
I think you should have given some attention to the punctuation and should have capitalized a few words, including the title.
Otherwise, I loved your poem, especially those moments you recollected from your childhood, they were very apt.
Keep writing!
Oh, and when you're free, I'd love it if you could read and review my poem - Confessions of a Teenage Know-It-All
Oh, wow. Excellent. This hurt my soul.
Great word choice! Except... for... "drank my sorrows away." This is, to me, a cliche description of a significant activity. I suggest rewording it.
Lovely piece, thank you for sharing!
I loved the emotion I felt while reading this. It reminded me of how I wish I would've never said I want to grow up because now that I have to grow up I don't want to. I felt some what suspended towards the ending when you repeated the word "when". It kept me reading faster until it faded away. I liked that a lot. I like poems I can relate to they're so much more enjoyable. This was a beautiful poem.
Hey, tjmorton!
Welcome to Young Writers Society!
Woah. This was just... Wow. Simply put, it was powerful. What caught my attention most was the lack of punctuation and capital letters to show youth - it was really clever and I loved that. You could really tell you've thought about everything: wording, punctuation (because there is none) and free verse (no rhyme). What I thought would make this poem a little more effective would be if here, on this line:
If you started showing the growing up stage, maybe gradually adding in capitalization and punctuation to show how they have aged. But it is just a thought.
I also love how you've contemplated the factors, likes and things kids like to do, for example, drinking out of a big girl cup. I find your realism refreshing.
And it is sad that we have to grow up, I'll give you that. You start to see things clear and the pain begins to set in like you mention death on line 13. It is a fact that with age comes responsibility. And with responsibility comes hardships.
Well done.
Yours sincerely,
Traunt
Quite the poignant piece, it says a lot about what we all grow through when we grow up, with youthful optimism and naivety slowly making way for the hard truths adulthood.
"ugly words passed through beautiful young lips that knew no bad"
This is the only line I had much of a problem with, I think it should be "knew no evil" or knew no wrong.
Other than that, great piece! I'd love to see some more.