(I found a draft of this in a folder from my poetry class nearly two years ago--the writing prompt was about being Fourteen)
I was determined
To beat the odds, to let nothing
No one hold me down
Pain was reality, but reality was so much more
My purpose was clear as I pressed on
Through mud and mire
Well meaning fists of ignorance
Pushed me into it
Mocking my dreams
That even I had not yet discovered
They say you feel
Invincible
At fourteen, but I knew long since
How small, how frail, how helpless
I was
Oh, to be fourteen!
I pray the day to say it
Never comes.
