Seventeen

Seventeen winters, and it feels so wrong,

 like I’ve lived too little, but I’ve been here too long.

 Another year older, but what have I gained?

 Only scars on my soul, only tears that remain.

What is a birthday but a cruel little lie,

 a marker of time meant to pass me by?

 There’s no joy in the candles, no spark in the flame,

 just smoke in my lungs and the weight of my name.

Seventeen years, and what do I see?

 A hollow-eyed stranger staring right back at me.

 The boy I once was, now buried and gone,

 and the man I’ve become is a life gone wrong.

What am I, but a breathing regret?

 A body that moves, a mind drowning in debt,

 not the kind you can pay with coins or gold,

 but the kind that haunts you, that never grows old.

A Love and now it’s gone, like a whisper in the wind,

 she saw all my cracks, all the ways I’d sinned.

 Her eyes turned cold, her touch grew thin,

 I tried to hold on, but I couldn’t win.

 Her love was a flame I burned through too fast,

 now I’m haunted by her shadows that trespass.

Friends, what friends? When I couldn’t make them stay,

 no matter how much I gave away.

 I tried to be enough, but I fell apart in every dispart,

 guess I’m not someone who can hold a heart.

 I can’t make them happy; I’m not what they need,

 not worth their time, not worth the seed.

My mother, her disappointment, sharpest of all blades,

 cutting me deeper with each grade I’ve made.

 Her eyes, they search for a light in my face,

 but all it finds is this desolate empty space.

 Her silence is louder than her words ever could be,

 and it screams, “Is this really the son meant for me?”

Seventeen years, and my name tastes like ash,

 my dreams are in ruins, my hopes a crash.

 I’ve seen the bottom, I’ve kissed the abyss,

 and it swallowed me whole, left me with this.

 I can’t be the hero my sister deserves,

 can’t guide her, protect her, steady her nerves.

 She looks up to me, but I can’t even stand,

 like an erratic foundation in the house built on sand.

What’s left for me now? A future unknown,

 a road with no signs, a path overgrown.

 Higher studies? A blur, a shadow, a void,

 a dream I can’t touch and a hope that’s destroyed.

 What job, what career, what life will I make,

 when everything I touch just seems to bend and break?

Seventeen folds, and the failure runs deep,

 in my veins, in my heart, in the dreams I can’t keep.

 I carry it with me, this heavy disease,

 a weight on my chest, a wound that won’t cease.

What am I supposed to do with this pain?

 What am I supposed to learn from the rain?

 If life is a lesson, then teach me why,

 I was born just to stumble and crawl and cry.

Seventeen years, and my world feels so small,

 I’m not climbing; I’ve fallen and shattered it all.

 The dreams I once held are nothing but dust,

 and the stars in my eyes have turned into rust.

But maybe this is the way it must be,

 To break so completely, to finally see

 that life isn’t kind, it doesn’t play fair,

 It doesn’t stop spinning for the weight that you bear.

And yet, I still breathe, though I don’t know why,

 I still drag my body under this heavy sky.

 Maybe one day, one day, I’ll find a reason,

 but for now, I’m just weathering the season.

Seventeen winters, and this is my truth,

 a life full of rubble, a burned-out youth.

 But if pain is my fuel, then let it ignite,

 I’ll bleed these words, as I write through the night.

-S.A.L.T