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On Turning Thirteen
The whole idea of it makes me feel
Like I'm suddenly expected to do something
Something great and original,
Something mature,
Like I have skipped to eighteen
With none of the privlages
You tell me it's too early to be looking back
But that's because you have forgotten
The wonderful discovery of being one,
And the new abilities introduced by two,
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit,
At four I was a flower girl,
I would skip down the aisle
At the wedding that created my family.
At seven I was a mom, at nine a sister.
But now I'm mostly in my room,
Working late on homework,
While outside my imagination waves
As it steps on a train
To another child
Not yet thirteen
This is the beginning of maturity, I say to myself
As I walk through the motions in my tennis shoes
It is time to say goodbye to this simplicity
Time to turn mature
It seems only yesterday I used to beleive
In cops and robbers and make-beleive
But now I know those simle games
Are played by children not teens
So, now as I watch
The children play
I wish I were younger
Forever young and free
