Adolescence - written 9-19-1999

This poem kills me. I wrote it 9-19-99 at 1:10 AM - I've always been a night-person, as my mom called it. Others call it insomnia. I was 17. Here goes:

Adolescence

I have vowed to remember
remember my youth
because forgetting is death
and I owe my children something

I have vowed to remember
bringing outlawed clothing
stuffed in my backpack
and changing in the bathroom
before school

I refuse to forget
the names I was called
in angry moments
by those who conceived me
(how could you berate me?)

Always in my mind
the way you thought you owned me
I had no privacy
I was only an ungrateful tumor -
it was a part of you

I take it all,
remember it.
I owe my children
that much.

Wow. I was 17 and held with me the reality of my childhood and my particularly painful adolescence. And then, despite my vow to myself, I forgot it. Denied it for years. I really feel sometimes like these poems I wrote when I was living at home are direct messages to my adult self. It's so odd. I feel like my younger self has so much to teach me.