You go to school. You take hard tests that don’t apply to what you want in life. You go through 3 levels of school to end up with ‘Now what?’. You pass your classes. You fail some tests. You lose some friends. You fight with your parents when your grade dropped from a 90% to an 89.97%. You give up when it’s 2:17 in the morning and you still don’t understand the term ‘abstemious’. You wake up with bags under your eyes. You go to school thinking about the weekend but it’s only a Tuesday at 8:05 am. You are pressured since Freshmen year in high school to stay in school and do your work. You are forced to conform to societal expectations that if you don’t get straight A’s then you aren’t going to college. You are given loads of homework and told college is worse than that-But a college student tells you otherwise! A college student has none!- and every hour you waste on the thousands of historical terms becomes an option. You are expected to apply, apply, apply and never have fun, have fun, have fun. You are overworked and provided with too much work. You don’t know if you’re going to succeed. You have no idea what you want to do for the rest of your life. You do everything they tell you, and suddenly it’s June and you still don’t know what is required to make a successful life. You consider not leaving the comfort of your room. You even try to tell your parents you’re not ready. But in the end you are.”

You are out past curfew. You don’t get 8 hours of sleep.

 You wake up early to say good morning.

You say I love you first. You give them your full attention.

You bring up that topic they always avoid and you’re left on the ground wounded. You look in the mirror and can’t ignore the bruises or that forced smile.

 You make them a priority. You cancel those plans you made months ago.  You swore you hated that music until you heard the lyrics come from their mouth sounding so sweet. You worry about if they made it home safe on friday night.

You go against what you believe in. You now believe in what they believe in. You are losing yourself.

You are put last. You are given nothing in return.

You reach for their hand while listening to that song that reminds you of them. You get a “stop” instead or even sometimes the fist. 

 You don’t get the hint. You blame yourself. You say you’ll change. 

You say I can work on it. You expect more than they’ll ever give. You say it only gets better. 

You say all these things but they don’t matter. You don’t get the appreciation you deserve. 

You question your worth.

You think that this is how love is supposed to be. It’s difficult and only full of arguments. But that’s not the truth! You are lied to. You are deceived. You are blinded. You feel pain. You fought for too long. It was never physical only emotional.

You will wake up and realize you are not in control of your life, they are.  You start to write down your thoughts in that notebook you have thrown in the drawer. 

Now is the time to breathe and tell yourself “let go”. 

You don’t need to make it happen. You are just a friend and always will be. 

You get a job.

You work harder than anyone else.

You earn your very first paycheck.

You buy your first outfit at the mall.

You fill up your tank.

You stay out past 11:00 pm.

You go to your first party.

You get drunk.

You face hard decisions.

You make sacrifices.

You try every trick in the book to gain independence; to become an adult, yet,

you're only 17.

You will make mistakes.

A little guidance from your parents never hurt.

Don't grow up too fast.

You eat less. You try to sleep more. You try to say the F word less. You go to yoga.

You act kinder and talk quieter. You claim that you are happy.

You conceal how you really feel. You become less you.

You realize that you is not you without the things that make you, YOU.

You eat enough. You sleep less. You say the F word more. F yoga.

You are always kind but a little loud. You are happy. You open up when you feel down.

You become the best you. In fact, you have always been the best you. 

You set 5 alarms, disable snooze, set alarms that require math problems to snooze

You blame it on how tired you are, on how you need your sleep, on how much homework you had the night before.

You give up and end up waking up 30 minutes before you have to leave. You don’t eat breakfast,you don't style your hair, you don’t pack that thing you were suppose to pack.

You end up not doing your homework, being hungry by 10, and being tired again the next night from lack of nutrition and energy and just end up repeating the cycle

 You try every trick in the book to stay fit. You try waking up at 5 am to run daily. You do 100 push ups. You do 100 sit ups. You do 100 squats. You work on getting muscles on your thighs. You work on getting muscles on your arms. You work on getting abs. You eat healthy foods. You reduce your meal portions. You cut off sodas and juices and mostly drink H2O. You make fruity smoothies to chug down after a nice workout. You start losing weight. You start noticing you don't have flabby arms and thighs. You start loving the progress of how your body looks. You start to get hungry. You see what there is on the fridge. You see leftover pizza. You convince yourself eating a slice of pizza won't affect you in a way or form, because your excuse is it's your cheat day. You prepare and eat the pizza. Then you start eating donuts. You start eating hamburgers with fries. You start drinking Coca-Cola instead of H2O. You slack on your daily runs at 5 am to sleep in more. You stop working out and replace it with a movie night eating popcorn and nachos. Why did You stop? You believe there are your cheat days. You go to the doctor for your check-up. You step on the weight scale, when you walk in the room. Your eyes cannot believe the number you saw that the scale gave you. You gained 30 pounds in just 4 days.

You set up reminders. You cancel plans. 

You send a really detailed and extremely long

text to your friends letting them know

why you can’t hang out. You get home from school

as fast as you can. You shut yourself in your room

You keep everything organized. You try to start.

You get distracted. You get on your phone.

You tell yourself you’ll do it later. 

You take a “5 ,minute” break. You get

on your phone. You get on netflix. 

You binge watch a whole series. You 

realize it’s 2 in the morning. You 

start stressing out,]. You skim and 

don’t try in your homework. You wake

up tell yourself it won’t happen again

You repeat the process. 

Your build up your motivation and compose sonnets of your potential success. You turn your phone off. You put your communications off to the side. You get off of social media. You claim that you're  stressed and start trying to manage your time better. You blame your course workload. 

You blame the American education system. You blame curriculum learning. You blame yourself. You find a therapist. You abstain from your hobbies and interests. You completely shut off your phone. You try to take the driving classes you put off, so you juggle multiple things and  manage your time better. You say that you were trying, you claim it was too much. It was the work. It was the pressure! And every hour like clockwork, you say you'll get on top of things and start anew. You try it all and even have a mental breakdown. Then, one day you simply sit up in bed and say you need help that the problem might be bigger than stress. You're going to have to manage your health and time better with the support of your friends and family. You consider completely giving up. In fact, you almost do. But in the end you have to keep trying to do the best you can do.

You try your best to keep that smile on your face.

You claim to be optimistic and cheerful but in reality you don’t feel that.

You try your best to never giving up and just sticking with school/schoolwork.

You try to let go of all that negativity. 

You try to let go of those depressing moments in life. 

You try to please others in different ways.

You claim you have forgotten those hardships that one has gone through.

You try it all, but one day you will regret feeling these gloomy thoughts and those people and events that took place around you will be gone. 

Your thoughts become one and come against you. You ask yourself is it worth it? Do I believe? Or are you in the beliefs of your family. You take control of your thoughts. You take the time to think. But time is the hardest to come by.