Adolescent Summer

it's still some time
for summer, but the tropic
sun is already harsh.
a brisk walk causes
my head to perspire,
and the hibiscus too
on my window has
begun to wilt at dusk.
it's what one would call
an adolescent summer.

but i loathe adolescence.

i loathe adolescence for
the soft bristles of hair
that made my face patchy,
and bore my voice an impolite
androgenous lilt that made
me sound confident, but
never convincing. i loathe
it for i how i discovered
myself in the dark: feeling
places that i never knew
was part of me. of blood
pumping into my groins,
and blissful contractions
lived over and over again
in secret sanctity.

i loathe adolescence for how
internet became interesting.
how the thirteen something
who had to be reprimanded
to finish homeworks and tied
shoelaces, grows the wisdom
overnight of realizing the most
genuine of humane truths through
loud voyeurism on adult websites.
i loathe adolescence for the
aloneness it brought to my thoughts.
for the new feelings that though
being powerful and spontaneous,
was surmised as a fleeting emotion.

most of all, i loathe adolescence
for how seeing her would cause
my heart to start thudding in my
chest, and my palms would go sticky,
and i would helplessly harden
only to be adjudged as an infatuation.
because of course, she too has been
preached the same: to not believe in
the truth of her body, to disregard
growing up, to shun love.

i loathe adolescence for
how it was trying to grow
me up, make a natural
evolutionary difference to
who i was, and the world
dismissed it all as unreal.
erratic.

no wonder how broken relations
are now an everyday reality, and
people move on with broken hearts,
like they had with scraped knees,
with an 'ouch' and a band-aid of
'chuck it' stuck across it.

easy, and without remorse.

aren't we, after all, reared
to not take feelings seriously,
from the time we begin
to feel it all?

- sobhan