Adolescence

• Bella Moujalli, Grade 10
• Poetry
• 2022

You won't realise the innocence you let slip away, until you’re squeezing
into the craziest places possible attempting to out-seek the seeker.
Until you turn to your younger sibling and see your youth in their eyes.
When did you get so tangled in growing up that you forgot to be a child?

Do you remember counting the days until you finally reached double digits?
Graduating juvenility expecting to live adolescence without fear?
Retracing steps won’t restore the naivety you only get away with as a child.
A fragile mosaic of the fragments of hope that you'd desperately clung to;
what else can you do when you’ve fallen far from familiarity?
At your own disposition, you poisoned your perception of childhood.

Do you remember when your only worry was which friend you’d seesaw with?
You had too many options, so you played alone.
Now, you stare blankly at the clock and count the minutes – urging their pace.
The passing time is agonising because nobody gets you, nor do they intend to.
Once considered, ordinary ideologies aren’t the same as they once were.
Living now isn’t the same as living once was.