When we're young, we think we know everything about the world. Until we encounter fraud and jealousy and crime and love and all things big and small that come with being human. How can you write about what you don't know? You speculate. You pretend. You use big words to sound important, but they only serve to show how inexperienced and pompous you really are. You can't fake experience. You have to live day by day, year by year, until maybe you discover a kernel of wisdom that helps you make sense of the world existing around you.

I could not have written this 30, 20, even 10 years ago. I hadn't experienced enough of the world to know what it was and how it would affect me and my relationship with all of its many parts. I wrote in ideas formed in my head, not from my gut or from my heart.

But you have to start somewhere. Understand that you will always have both limitations and limitless potential. If you can manage to balance the two, you will not only be writing, but you will be living well.

#ageandwriting #challenge #philosophy

I am writing again after a break of about 20 years.  My writing has become better than what it was.  I'm not saying I'm a good writer, but the experiences that I have had, and the age I am now, allow me to apply the proper perspective to evaluate and adjust the way I think about my feelings.  

That's an oxymoron, I bet!  But I truly believe it has.  And with the help of the very gifted writers on here, I think I have found a way to study the writing and different ways I can improve.  So my age has allowed me to be more open to feedback about my writing.  I don't look at criticism as a bad thing.  I look at it more like, "How can I be better..."

So yeah, the thing I like about my age - 48, going on 49 at the end of the month, has allowed me to gain the proper perspective to not only my writing but myself.

I love my age, and I love life...I love spreading or trying to spread peace and love in it daily.

As Saint John Lennon said, "Love is all you need"

I, myself

I don't know

If you're able to tell

But I,

I'm just barely a

Teenager

13 less than 5 months ago

I'm in what you'd call

The "Gifted" Program

Just to tell me

I'm smart,

Which seems like a load of

Crap to me

We're all smart

Next year, I'll be

Taking advanced courses at the

high school

9th grade work for a 7th/8th grader

Fun times

But...

Math,

Science,

History,

Art,

They're all okay

But writing,

Writing is what I love

I think my

Innocence helps

But sometimes I feel

Like I'm 13,

Going on 73.

I know they say the world

Isn't black and white

There are grays

But I see the world in color

I have my opinions

I try to voice them

While seeing the other side

I get along with most

Hardly anyone who dislikes me

That I know of

And if you hate me,

Well, that's okay.

I don't hate you,

I just know,

That sometimes everyone can't love me.

But my writing,

I like to think I write with

A new view

An open view

With innocence

But wisdom

As well

And that's just how I think of

Myself.

I'm fifteen.

Sixteen next month.

I get thrown so much shade I can call it sunshine.

In high school.

Top ten percent of my class.

I have a crush on four guys.

My best friend is Jesus reborn.

Mom and I are obsessed with Hannibal

Manga, still life, portraits, and landscapes.

Love = Parents.

Waiting for my email from Brown.

Yeah, Brown hit me up.

Love sweets.

Hate Trump.

I'm X and Dubois.

I'm King and Garvey.

I'm black and a panther.

Yeah, I'm black.

Undeniably so.

Some people don't get that.

I can pass as white, like, over the phone.

I make original characters.

Love traveling.

Want to go away for college.

Three high schools in the last two years.

Been reading since two.

Haven't stopped.

It's my way of traveling the world.

I have a wanderlust that depresses me.

Kinda broke.

About to start working this summer.

Still be here, in this tiny ass town.

And that kind of sucks because I hate it.

But at least I can keep writing what I know.

Then I can drown with three pages left

...

Journals are hella cheap.

I can't swim.

©SelfTitled, 2017

These are the years 

The universe has cradled me

In many ways, I'm still a baby

A child trying to navigate the world

Not old enough to steer myself,

But old enough

But old enough

                 maybe in thirty or forty years

                 i'll have it all figured out

                 but for now i'll write about myself

                 about how, in order to learn to steer,

                 you must first find your vessel

I make my own peace

Count my own numbers

Write my own words

I'm not old enough to

Try to make sense of it all,

But old enough

But old enough 

                i'm not a genius, always wrote about my life 

                wishing i could change it, but i guess i'm learning

                how to feel happy, living off someone else's dreams

                talking with someone else's lips, 

                feeling with someone else's heart

                for now, while i'm still a kid

                i'll continue to live as fully as i can

                and try to create some life inside of myself

Fourteen is the number of years I've been living, 

The amount of love I've been giving, 

And I'm not old enough to give everything, 

But old enough

To love

I'm young

so fucking fucking young

I'm not even done with middle school

but soon, 2-3 weeks, I'm done!

But then I'll move to high school, 

Joyous.

I love to write, 

so fucking much

it gives me a way to rant

rant rant rant

I can say what I want

with no regrets

I see things from

a teen's perspective

so people, mainly adults,

can see what it's like

to be somebody my age

in this modern day and age

to write as a teen

you can say something

and get ridicule

but if someone does not 

know you are a teen

they will love, or hate, your writing

I write to write

being my age doesn't

make any difference

I'm me, and 

you, are you

and I can't really change that

When you are my age, you experience everything. Well this may not be true, I am only 16, but I have been to hell and back. Many people who are my age are going to parties, going out with friends, and having the time of their life. I am trapped in my home and am just existing, but that is for another story. My age, 16, helps me write because I write of what dream, what I see, and what I experience. Some of my stories are because I what people did to me in the years. Many stories happen in dreams first. And many are simply me. My age is the years I am here and those years have filled me with enough stories to go around for centuries. 

Sometimes, as teens, our ability to write is looked down upon, even openly scorned. "What do they know?! I've got life experience! What do they have?!"

     We have life experience, too. Maybe not as much as an adult's, but we've got life experience nonetheless. Not to mention we've got something few adults have.

     We have a youthful outlook on life. We're in the throes of chaos and fun, the roller coaster of childhood merging into adulthood. So believe me, we've got a lot to say. And the way we say it is down-to-earth in a manner other teens will understand. Which is important.

      So yes, it's kind of like comparing apples to oranges...but I think more books for teens actually should be written by teens. You know? By the time you're forty...you probably don't remember that much of your teen years in great detail, do you? I know my parents sure don't. Not to mention the fact that times change; adults weren't teens when we are. Sure, the bullies are the same, and the cliches are the same...but the atmosphere as changed. And who knows better how to deal with these problems then those who are dealing with them?

At 51 years of age, I am done with 'preparing to prepare.' 

I have broken my addiction to 'Epic Delay.' 

My 'one day' has turned into 'how do I move it forward today.'

I can edit the words I write but I can never go back and edit the day in which I wrote them. That only comes once.

I've always had something to say, but now I am much quicker to give myself permission to say it.

As I look back I can see patterns and themes throughout my life. I try not to reduce them to caricatures or cliches. Instead, I see them as well-springs to be explored and developed or alternatively pitfalls to be avoided. So my age, my history, informs my writing and demands that it be done.   

i am too young to be looked over

too old to be overlooked

too young for a place in the world

too old to fit in the corner

i am not too young to hear the clock 

ticking seconds i am not talking

minutes i am a minute thing

days spent in a daze

years of deaf adult ears

ticking toward too late 

what is my age?

younger than me.