Age 19

At times, we believe that all that matters is love;
But when we escape our mother’s arms and leap into the world,
We discovered how poorly mistaken we are.

As small children, we are pushed in the direction we are expected to go;
we are to “sit straight”, “cross our legs”, and “put our napkins on our laps.”
We are told to set high goals for ourselves;
“Get good grades”, “go to college”, and “get married.”

But at what point are we taught to defend ourselves?
Why are we not shoved by our thoughts before we are prodded by the mindless who stand before us?

We are ignorant to our surroundings until we are submerged in the conflict of thought;
What we knew we always had believed is now in question,
and every new thought we conceive hangs in the balance of our undecided worldview.

At four years old, we know all the questions,
at 18, we know all the answers.
And at 19, we realize how truly lost we are.

Our nearsighted future is consistently blurred;
our thoughts and plans are cycling through like clockwork.
Mindless and only moving forward, with no direction in place.
Our brains spin uselessly while we manage our lives on a day-to-day basis.

We’re trapped in questions and our life drifts askew;
The plans we made lay stagnant before us as our quarter-life crises begin,

However, so does our self-development.

Age nineteen;
it’s the beginning of the most pivotal years of our lives.
And without them, we could not survive.