when i was young

I would hold my breath around

smokers and cemeteries,

for fear of killing my lungs

or becoming the victim of a ghost.

I would gape at

the homeless and anyone different,

for I had never learned to be indifferent.

I would hold my lollipop like a

cigarette,

pretending to be one of those

people that have thrown their

life away for a smoke,

for I was never taught that it was not funny.

I would imagine things that

were not there,

unaware that my brain was

shielding me from a crueler

world than I had been born in.

I would cry at abandoned

animals and empty barren lands

previously lush with trees,

not realizing I would still be

crying as a fourteen year old

girl, only yearning for happiness

and peace,

desiring a world that does not

exist, instead surrounded by

industrialized forests and

a warm North Pole.

When I was young,

I would keep a diary

with a key that had a

heart engraved onto its

head, writing down

mundane things,

not knowing

that I still used one seven

years later,

except terrified that

someone will find the key.

When I was young,

I was a girl with a big dream.

But now,

I am a girl with a smaller dream,

for I realize that in this world,

not everything is wonderful.