Sixteen

Feels like yesterday I was turning sixteen

So much has changed so fast and it feels like no time has passed at all

Time’s not the same anymore, days feel like weeks but weeks shrink to hours, flashes of bright memory between blanks left by hours of classes and practice rooms

The kid I used to be knew how long it took between birthdays, now getting older doesn't feel like it's worth waiting for

Life used to crawl, waiting to really begin, before I was sixteen and it sped forward as fast as the car I got in to go as far from home as I could.

It's been four years and it feels like days

I haven't seen my mom in months, my childhood bedroom is sitting empty in the house

My brother’s thirteen now, he's growing up without me and he hasn't texted

I don't know how every adult lives like this knowing they can't go back

I'm almost twenty and in my mind I'm sixteen, I'm still so young but I feel ancient

My face is covered in lines, aren't you supposed to be still pretty at twenty?

I guess it just means I've smiled