Change
When did life get so difficult?
I ask myself every day.
I wonder if it’s my fault,
That all the fun went away.
I used to grow a year older,
And think i was so cool.
Now every birthday feels colder,
As I’m a year closer to leaving school.
When did I become the teenager,
My younger self would look up to.
I feel more like a stranger,
To the friends I swore I knew.
And some days, I wish I could go back and tell that girl
Please, don’t grow up too soon.
by Kate Bookle
Despite this being a nicely-rhymed poem, I especially liked this poet’s decision to not attempt a forced rhyme for ‘girl’ at the end of the first of this poem’s two closing lines. Instead, she presents them (to my mind anyway) almost like spoken coda to a song, as a gentle warning of sorts; it’s a choice that works really well. I liked the honest, almost bitter-sweet tone of this poem.