literature

Grown Up

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oracle-of-nonsense's avatar
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Literature Text

When
are you grown up?

When you stop believing
in religion,
or when you start thinking
that there might be a God,
but He took His hands off the wheel
a long time ago?
Is it when you realize
that adults, protectors of youth
are more than willing to hurt you
and pretend that it's love?
Is it when you lie awake afterward thinking,
and feel the emptiness
of giving to a vacuum,
or when it hits you like a suckerpunch
that he is leaving you
and he just doesn't care?
When you hear
that a friend got tired of life,
or when she gives you a piece
of her aborted attempt
to be like you?
Is it when
he whispers all the words
that mean "I love you,"
or when you believe him?

When
am I grown up?
Just thinking the other night about what makes a person "grown up." We like to think we're grown up when we get a job, have our hearts broken, get drunk, etc., but our parents don't agree, and in their minds, maybe we'll never be grown up.

So. There.

Featured here: [link] by :iconcheapexposure:

:iconthewrittenrevolution:
How does this poem make you feel? What are your thoughts while reading it?
When you do think one is grown up?
General critique is appreciated.
© 2010 - 2024 oracle-of-nonsense
Comments31
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whitefox00's avatar
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Vision
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Originality
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star: Impact

I love good poetry: something stimulating, something that alters one's state of mind. I think that's the key. A poem that you read and feel no connexion to, something that you could praise or condemn with equal veracity, something you feel indifferent to, that's something horrible.

It's by the same principle which I can quantify and evaluate this poem as a wonderful work of art. It was rather hard to find the correct verb as to how it affected me, and I think the closest I got was "stumble". It made me stumble. That will be covered in the 'impact' section.

Vision and Originality
Vision and originality sort of run counter to each other in this case. You see, it's a poem about growing up. But it's questioning... all of these mature, developed, experienced questions. The originality comes from the child-like aspect of the question, while the vision (the nature of which is mature) is in the form of the mature answers. The contrast of the two also contributes to the originality of this work.

If the author were to ask herself the question, "When am I grown up?" I think she would already know the answer: "Right now." But it's almost like a rhetoric. It sounds as if she's thought about all of these incidences quite a bit and is simply saying them aloud.

Technique
I'm happy to say that the intricate and demanding free-form style of poetry was put to good use here. I've seen these go wrong sooo many times, but when one really does master the form, the results are very expressive and provoking. This goes back to my earlier statement: the success of this poem is that it provokes thought, and moves you out of your normal range of comfortable, familiar thinking.

Impact
I've only felt this way only a few times after reading a poem. Someone said 'upsetting', which was true enough - albeit without the negative connotation - but I preferred to think of it as something that made me stumble. I went in expecting a personal statement from the author, and left with an odd feeling reverberating throughout my body. It was similar to the sensation one gets after watching a trailer for a new action/thriller film.

It's rare for something to hit me like that in any of the art forms (and I've experienced quite a bit), so the 'impact' score is a perfect one. I feel that every bit of it is deserved.