The clock ticks louder in a teenager’s chest,
each second a verdict, each breath a test.
We are architects of dreams with trembling hands,
building empires on sandcastles that the tide reprimands.
The mirror is both enemy and shrine,
it reflects not who we are, but who we must define.
Eyes searching for constellations in the cracks of skin,
mouths rehearsing courage they never let in.
Love arrives like an uninvited storm,
gentle rain, then lightning, then reform.
A glance in the hallway can fracture a soul,
a text unanswered can swallow it whole.
Parents preach roads paved with certainty,
but we walk blindfolded into infinity.
Their words are maps of a world long gone,
we are left sketching oceans on scraps of dawn.
Homework weighs heavy like iron chains,
yet cannot anchor the hurricane in our veins.
We crave freedom, yet fear the abyss,
we trade childhood’s lullabies for the silence of risk.
Loneliness is a room crowded with noise,
laughter like knives, absence like poise.
We are actors in plays we did not audition for,
clapping for scenes that leave us sore.
And yet
in the midnight ache, a spark survives
a promise that brokenness still strives.
We are mosaics, cracked but ablaze,
learning that light seeps best through the frays.
Seventeen is a wound and a hymn,
a war inside, a prayer within.
Life is tiring, but in the blur,
we discover who we almost were.
November, 2025
