It’s a rather funny thing to realize that, at the ripe age of eighteen, you’ve become a person.

One with a personality and all that.

It’s considerably less funny to discover that said person is not exactly who you’d thought you’d be

When you were sitting alone and dreaming of such things

The summer before sixth grade,

As you mused over the songs that Adult you would sing

As if singing songs would preoccupy a large portion of your time come college

Mused over the color that your eyes would be

As if this were something that could up and change with the passing of a year

And without a passing thought to the pricelessly carefree attitude of early adolescence that you so possessed then

That you should have worked to hold onto

And you mean this with all sincerity when you say

That this, this right now.  This moment is the first in years in which you’ve truly allowed yourself to feel anything at all

And you think that’s rather sad

And you’re growing tired of typing in dramatic fragments

But you think it’s kind of

Fun

And you really do miss poetry

And not trying to be anything but a mind left to wander

And you’re beginning to realize that there’s a certain criminality to the way in which modern society is structured

And you know that you wouldn’t survive a day without it

Yet you know that something is very wrong with the way in which you’re living your life

Spending your time

And you know that it’s rather important that you realize this fact

And take a moment

To remember the girl sitting at home the summer before sixth grade

To remember that there is a whole spectrum of emotion available to you

And this isn’t like choosing flavors at an ice cream store, where you simply must decide on just one

No, you can have them all.  That’s capitalism for you.

It’s kind of like when you smell something amazing

And it’s so hard to place, nearly impossible to describe

And it begins to dawn on you that you’ve never experienced this sensation before

And then you begin to wonder about all those sensations that you’ve never experienced before

And you start to realize how limited you are and how small you are and the endless possibilities that might pass you by should you continue to live with your eyes

Cast down

Too embarrassed to acknowledge the people you pass on an empty street. And they don’t understand that your face is just naturally closed off looking, and you most certainly don’t take the time to explain this to them

So you continue to walk as if there isn’t this strange internal conflict going on in your head that happens to occur quite frequently, actually

And you realize that it’s so easy to forget thoughts, but aren’t they the stray bits of ideas that you should be clinging to for dear life

Because aren’t those thoughts all that you’re made of

Because then that would explain why I feel so empty now, at the ripe old age of eighteen.

It really would

Because I don’t think I’ve allowed myself to listen to my own thoughts for a while now

And I think that doing so might help me, because something is clearly wrong

When you awaken from a perfectly pleasant life and find that you’re kind of, well, empty

And you find yourself mimicking the idiosyncratic speech patterns of whoever happens to be in a room with you

And losing whatever personality you once had to whichever TV show lead you’ve decided to drink in

And you realize that you’re a supposed work in progress, that learning through observation is perfectly normal

Yet you kind of miss the way that you used to be

And you realize how perfectly unfortunate that is given the way your little human head is programmed to function

To forget and remodel and make renovations

All too often sweeping the best bits of you under the rug

And leaving what feels like nothing behind

So yeah I don’t know

You think that maybe this whole thing, this writing thing was cathartic or something

And you think that it’s weird to see your thoughts, your true thought thoughts spilled out on a computer screen

Like a piñata that wasn’t entirely broken up, but instead threw up its last meal and now feels kind of sick

And you think they’re kind of bewildering

And altogether incoherent

And you realize that thinking about thoughts is hard and that you most probably have too much free time

But you also want to develop some sort of personality again

And you wonder if this a normal problem to have.  And you wonder if sometimes blocking out the noise to focus on completing tasks, however important they may seem at the time, actually blocks out the most important bits of life.

As in maybe the noise isn’t noise at all, but just a part of living that you’re not allowing yourself to hear

So you allow yourself a moment to rest

And you feel rather good

And isn’t that all you ever really wanted in the first place