I miss being seventeen
coming home from school and
closing the door to my room
and I’d play my guitar even when
my fingers hurt and I could barely
strum the simplest chords right
I would open the voice memo app
on my beat up iphone 4
and I’d record myself singing
songs about love and longing
yet I never experienced
any of it
and I woud save grunge aesthetics
on tumblr and weheartit
with lyrics from the 1975 or halsey
reblogged eleven thousand times
wishing I was as cool with clothes my
family would kill me for if I wore them
I miss being seventeen
abandoning my homework just to
write cringy fanfiction on an ad-free
wattpad read by twitter friends
hiding in the dark and reading unfinished
works waiting patiently for every update
my family would still scold and yell
words like nails pressing around my neck
forcing weak cries from the back of my
throat but I had my guitar
and I had my voice memos and
wattpad and a notebook from typo
and I could escape
I thought I could escape
I barely remember the sounds
of my sister yelling at her kids
of my brother’s angry footsteps on the stairs
but I still remember
the drop of my organs to my stomach floor
when I made one small mistake
waiting for the yelling and interrogation
to begin
do I really miss being seventeen?
my dad drove me to school
and to the mall to meet my friends
I didn’t worry about money or
how to make amends
just go to the movies and
have fun with those friends or at least
I could stay inside and love
my favorite bands
I miss being seventeen
still learning how to hate myself properly
with no clue how the next few years
were going to change for me
naive and clueless and so
fucking pathetic
but at least I was a teenager
not pushing thirty and still
stuck inside my head.