Growing Up, my little "beatnik" poem

Damn Slut, what are you worth?
Am I cool now, now that I have said those words?
Have I finally grown into the highscooler you knew I could be?
Have these words let me flow and become one of you?
Have I grown up a set my childhood aside?
Yes and No.
These hateful, defiling, selfish words that fall from my lips do not make me grown.
They set me back and bind me in chains.
Because growing up is not saying these words.
Growing up is when you leave yourself behind. When you move away from everything you have known and felt and believed.
Growing up is seeing things you never thought possible before and regretting you didn’t see them sooner.
Growing up is when you are left no options and growth is your only choice.
Growing up is taking the experiences the cruel world throws on top of you, and making them something resembling a life.
Growing up is when you can see your friend on her knees. Crying “Please God Please. Don’t let him leave me!”
Growing up is when you see the scars. When you feel the pain behind each slice, each razor each wire.
Growing up is when you let her have him, for happiness. When you put yourself aside and just let things ride.
Growing up is when you go home and try not cry. When you will the tears not to spill and the hand not to wander to the scissors. When you live not to disappoint. When you live to save others not yourself.
Growing up is opening your ears to the cries that ring out year by year. When you recognize the pain in a mother’s eyes as she struggles to provide for her children, who go around school acting like their high and mighty while little brothers and sisters wait to be fed and they struggle to conceal what is really within their minds.
Growing up is when you look around you and swallow your tongue. Because you realize that sometimes the only escape is the act they put on for the crowd. When you realize that the words will destroy the image that sticks in their minds for a little while, the image of a happiness that does not exist.
Growing up is when you see the decision before you, and you think. When you consider the consequences before you act and you desperately try to find a way to stop the wrongs before they occur and blow up yet more lives.
Growing up is not learning the words that every high-schooler is supposed to say.Growing up is not rolling your eyes at every opportunity that arises. Growing up is knowing what is going on, and putting yourself aside.Or at least it has been for me.