the curse of seventeen

have I already tasted my peak?

"I'm so sick of 17, where's my fucking teenage dream?"

"could never tell you what happened the day i turned seventeen"

"I'm only seventeen, I don't know anythin' but I know I miss you"

—

Because when you're seventeen, the world is against you. You hold your head a little low, trying your best to figure out where you stand in a room full of people who you think have it all sorted. You sit in groups, you listen, you observe—you realize how desolate that makes you feel. You don't go out and party, but when you do, you end up feeling more miserable than ever. You return home with the taste of hollowness on your tongue, unsure if the misery you feel is your fault for expecting too much from people—or too little from yourself. You stick your head outside the car window and look at the other kids having fun, playing around, and then you look at a group of people your age. You hide your face, and tears well up without knowing why.

You come home each day to your parents, not understanding what to give to you—freedom, love, privacy, care, or sternness. They wonder if they should be parents or friends. They want you to act your age, but you're a kid when you ask for something more. They don't know it, because it's their first time on Earth too. You'll blame them, because their indecisiveness is taking a part of your life—a major one—away from you. You'll put your head between your knees and fold your arms like that, yearning for the life you'll have outside of home one day. You imagine a life beyond these four walls, one where no one second-guesses your intentions, where you are enough just as you are. You convince yourself that adulthood will rescue you, even though deep down, you already sense it won’t.

—

And when you feel that—that loathing—a boy comes into your life and assures you that he loves you. You believe him, because no one has ever told you that before. He looks at you with hungry eyes; you think it's adoration. He calls you beautiful, and your mind clings to that word like it’s life support. He holds your hand, and you feel safe for a while. He whispers sweet nothings into your ear, and you show him sides of yourself that nobody else has seen before. That love isn't love, because it turns into something lesser. Something you're too ashamed of. Something that claws at your individuality. Something that brings you down. Something that you cannot show off to the world anymore.

You start dressing differently, talking differently, thinking in a way that doesn’t belong to you. You become a half written sentence in someone else's story. And when it ends, as all things built on shaky ground do, you don’t just mourn him—you mourn yourself. You cry yourself to sleep, hiding your heartbreak from the world—which already hated you—because at seventeen, you cannot admit your defeat. You cannot lose. It might not be the end of the world to someone older and wiser, but it is to you. Because when you had that love for a brief time, you felt in control. For a fleeting moment, being loved made you feel powerful. Now, without it, you feel smaller than ever. Things don't get better for you, because they just won't. Not right now.

—

You feel like a vase full of dead flowers—arranged, presented, admired, but lifeless. You stop looking in the mirror because you’re afraid the girl in it is still waiting to be picked again. You change a million times in the span of twelve months until you turn eighteen and realize you've lost a year, and you don't know who you are anymore. A whole year spent trying to be everything and nothing at once. Imposter syndrome or a superiority complex? What exactly are you dealing with here? Obsolescence or adolescence, or both because figuratively they're the cause and the result of each other itself? Is it only grief causing this deterioration or are you sabotaging yourself in all ways possible? You aren't sure. All that you're certain of is that something was taken away from you—something you weren't ready to let go.

(to all my girlies who are 17 right now, i see you <3)