It’s hard to be serious in high school.

It’s hard to feel feelings and love people and apologize.

It's hard to use big words like "feelings" and "love" and "apologize", so

We carry around little words like "sorry" and "cute"

And throw them at boys who don't know our middle names

And friendly neighbors and vaguely familiar people in the line at the grocery store.

It’s hard to be serious in high school.

You can’t think about life or college or talk about your own future because

Everyone in your life wants answers and all you can give are questions.

So we avoid long silences and hugs from parents and

We avoid avoid table talk and grandmothers who want answers.

We avoid and we hope and we pray for answers that we don't even have.

It’s hard to be serious in high school.

Because when he tells you he loves you

It feels like the world is spinning.

Everything is soft and he uses the word “beautiful"

But when you’re in your bed later, alone,

It feels kinda wrong.

It’s hard to be serious in high school.

And have self-confidence and pride and feel worthy.

Your moms taking pictures of you in your $400 prom dress

and it took three hours to curl your hair,

But all you can think about is if your dates going to want to have sex

And if you'll be good at it.

It’s hard to be serious in high school.

Teenagers laugh at being called misunderstood

But it's the truest quality we possess

A word we consciously brush away.

It's the only thing we can't hide or avoid or

Run away from in the line at the grocery store.

We're worried that we might actually be able to handle pain.

We're realizing that we're on the cusp of adulthood and there's no turning back.

That maybe all of these emotions and thoughts and feelings inside of us

are justified.

That we might be mature enough to face it, to face ourselves,

To face our growing pains.