Anytime I was shoved down

Or hit on the head

There was a guidance counselor who told me

“You’re mature for your age”

But I, in secret, had just learned to hold my tongue and when not to talk 

If all I have to do to be mature is to be silent 

then you have only taught me that silence is violence because I am a child and I do not need to reach maturity before the eve of my life because it has not started

From grades 3 to 5 I was small and alive

Loving anything and everything that had ever crossed my eyes

From grades 6 to 8 I had hated all the ways I was small and my back had hunched from being “mature for my age”

And carrying the burden of knowledge I thought I possessed 

Not being able to have days where I only had to be a kid and play

I decided to hit pause until I could have fun

And just get through these few years until I am able to be the one, 

I wish to be

From grades 9 to 10 I was put on pause again by my insecurities and parts of the mirror I wished were blurred,

I’m in 11th grade now,

I am not small

I am still alive

I am still able to love and live until I die

I am not insecure about the things I once hated about myself

I can play the keys, the strings, anything that requires fingerings 

I am the Jack of all trades, master of none

Better than to be, than the master of one

but I am still on pause

I am still waiting for my life to start and before I would beg for it to somehow speed up 

Just a few clicks up

But now I am waiting

Focused on the future while still stuck in my memory

The minor chords to the melody of my melacholic sonatas thrown back at me

I, am no longer haunted by my nightmares 

but surrounded by my dreams 

and the things I wish to achieve

The changing of keys and 

the juxtaposition of notes in perfect lines of threes

I feel like I am falling just short of who I need to be 

That three point basket that was just a tad bit over the line 

The misclick of a mouse

The incorrect formula to a code line,

The wrong note,

I feel like I am a note that doesn’t belong in the scale

And all the questions I want answered,

That will be throughout my life and will not until it starts

Until the first note is played

To the beginning of life

To have love in my heart

My only answerable question is 

When will my symphony of forever finally start?