Half Grown and Still Dreaming

Some people never got past thirteen. They just got taller.

Wrote this with Add It Up in my ears and a knot in my throat.
For the ones who screamed into pillows, slammed doors they paid for later,
and still flinch when someone tells them to act like an adult.

Not for everyone.
Just for the ones who remember what it felt like
to be thirteen, invisible, and too full of want to sit still.

---

Sometimes I forget
that everyone’s just a kid in a body that got older without asking.
Bones stretched too thin over dreams that didn’t make it
past the third rejection letter
or the voicemail he never returned.
Until I catch it—
that flicker.
Behind tired eyes.
A war they don’t talk about anymore.

They’re not looking at you.
They’re looking at the life they thought they’d have by now.
The one they scribbled in spiral notebooks,
half-drunk on hope and LimeWire downloads mislabeled as Radiohead.
The one they whispered into pillowcases,
believing the world might be kind enough to listen.

And god, the numbness of daylight.
How it dulls the pulse,
teaches us to clock in
smile
nod
produce
submit.
Like grief in a pressed shirt.
Like dreaming with your teeth clenched.

Makes it easy to forget
that the man slamming his fist on the steering wheel
once built Lego kingdoms for invisible queens
and believed in dragons more than deadlines.

That the girl at the checkout —
the one with chipped black nail polish
and a Taking Back Sunday patch safety-pinned to her tote —
used to write love songs in a wide-ruled notebook
with “Mrs. Billie Joe Armstrong” drawn in glitter gel pen on the front,
hid it under her mattress next to a scratched-up burnt CD labeled “Sad Shit Vol. 3”,
a Sidekick she never charged after he stopped texting,
and a pack of Parliament Lights she only smoked
when her AIM away message said something like
“Don’t ask. I’m fine.”

(He read her lyrics once.
Said “cool.”
Then added someone else to his Top 8.)

She didn’t know what she meant back then
when she screamed
“Why can’t I get just one fuck?”
But it felt good.
It felt like telling the truth with your whole body.
Like someone else finally knew what it meant
to ache for something you couldn’t name
and weren’t allowed to want.

---

And lately—
I’ve been seeing it everywhere.
That flicker behind someone’s rage or sadness.
The way a stranger lashes out in traffic,
or someone spirals at a party,
or a friend says something so cruel it feels like they aimed for the bruise.

And I don’t get mad.
I don’t yell back.
I just watch.

Because I can see it now—
the frustration, the panic, the grief behind their eyes.
The little kid in them who never got what they needed.
Who still doesn’t know how to ask for it without breaking something.

We’re all just kids who kept growing.
Kids who got jobs, cars, credit scores —
but never learned how to hold our own fear
without handing it to someone else.

Even our parents.
Especially them.

They were just kids who had kids.
Still learning.
Still scared.
Still faking it until someone finally sees through them.
They weren’t ready.
Most aren’t.
But the world doesn’t ask. It just hands you a baby
and says don’t drop it.
Even if your own arms are still shaking.