Sixteen days to 16

 
My sixteenth birthday is in 16 days.
Which means soon I will be 16 years old, and I will have spent 16 years being me.
The girl who is too much or not enough
The girl who always got told she could be a princess and wanted to be one so badly,
but never got the chance
Sweet 16 years of loving my family
And God
And my friends
Of being a poet, even when I didn’t know it
16 years of loving pink and being me
Of loving Taylor Swift
Of constantly trying to be truly,genuinely happy
16 years of loving theater
16 years of everything that makes me, me

The love I have for people and cats and goats
Of crying on my birthday and sitting alone
Sixteen years of trying to find self love
And 16 years of love and growth later
I am still me.

I like to think I take a little piece of everybody and everything I see with me
And every version of me has made it to 16
So happy sweet 16 to every version of me: You made it
Happy birthday to
A poet
A girl who loves theater a
A heartbroken girl
A girl being bullied
A girl during quarantine
A girl who loves her friends
A girl who’s struggling
A girl who wants to change the world
A girl who wants to be good at art
A girl who likes pink lemonade
A girl who thinks crosswalks are magical
A girl who makes houses out of books
A girl who is picking blackberries with her a dad
A girl who just became a big sister
A mommy’s girl
And most importantly, the girl in the pink blanket.
You’re truly very sweet, my girl

*

A message from the teenage poet

 
I am going to leave you with this final thought
You are not defined as whatever it is people think that you are
You are human

I am going to leave you with this final thought,
The idea that everything and anything is a possibility
So that someday when you are happy and successful in whatever it is that you do
Somebody younger, someone struggling
Will look up at you and see that you did it.

The goal in my poetry
Has always been to tell stories,
And if you have listened to my stories a
About my life
About what i love and who i love
Than I am successful poet
A poet who may not be rich or famous
But is a poet
And is proud

I want to leave you with the final thought that I am so grateful for you,
And so proud of you
I want to leave whatever it is that I am doing to you
Because this all for you
And because of you
Whatever you are going through will pass
And if my poetry has helped you even a little bit
I am proud
And that is what makes me successful

If somehow,someway this has helped you in the same way it has helped me
I have made it, I have peaked to the top of the mountain of poetry
And that makes me happy
The thought of living has not always come easy to me
So this,
My writing,
My poetry
It has been a light in the darkness
It has gotten me through all of this
I am proud of you
I am proud of me
All is fair in love and poetry
You’re gonna go far
Just keep writing, sweetie.