Seventeen –
What a strange, peculiar number.
In between the Sweet Sixteens and Enlightened Eighteens,
My seventeen stings of static, of silences.

I wasn’t always like this –
At seven my mind dreamed of inventions,
I remember the wild playground dates when eight.
At ten I envisioned a future,
At eleven I was the Little Mermaid.
Fourteen was when I tasted ecstasy. And though when
Fifteen came, sickness plagued
Sixteen at least was a bittersweet solace.

But now I’m here, seventeen, and still,
The world is in a swirl.
Movements abound, but the shadows curve around,
shades to my vision.
Everything stings, sour nostalgia.

It stinks of anticlimax, this seventeen,
A sorry sight of sombre greys.
I yearn to look for a sign of colour, but
My years are sloping on a sharp decline.
It won’t be long before it reaches stasis.