Reflections/Rite of Passage | Teen Ink

Reflections/Rite of Passage

October 5, 2014
By AGarsson PLATINUM, Mill Valley, California
AGarsson PLATINUM, Mill Valley, California
24 articles 0 photos 1 comment

I am in a world blanketed by déja vu.

A dream of serenity loops over and over,

Spilling over my thoughts during the witching hour of night.
There be a vast space of open sky and shallow water,
Where both light and reflection forever remain in embrace.
The line separating the two lovers is hazy.

I walk the line of the love affair.

The pools are clearer than enlightenment,
And the heavens above me are prouder than a new mother.
However, this land is no place for an afterlife.
This solemn beauty must only be rewarded to the souls
Who strive to live,
Or for those who searching for metaphors to live.

No shadows exist in the land of reflections.

There is no night,
For the only darkness there already lives inside of us.
A perfect mirror in the crystalline water,
Walks with me in my loneliness.
I stare into my mirrored eyes in amusement.

I look back to when life was fluid.

How graceful it was to make mistakes as a child,
And how water was only needed to clean the mess.
How easily emotions could be expressed,
Hot-tempered or a chilling gloom.
My watery reflection is not me,
But what I used to be.

I look up to the sky to see what I have become.

I must shoot for the stars but stay bounded to the Earth.
The neverending cycle of filling lungs,
Stealing back breath.
To be everywhere at once,
And always appear the same.

When did my reflection start staring back?
Which world can I belong to,
When I am the same person in each?
How much can a person change with age?
I have never stopped learning,
Or faulting.

We are different, my reflection and I.
But have always changed together,
Parallel to the line between the two horizons.


The author's comments:

As a teenager, I have had a lot of difficulty defining a point in my life that separates my childhood and adulthood. I'm not religious, so I have had no ceremony where I can feel comfortable that I have transitioned. I'm currently a sophmore in high school, so my diploma situated on the top of Public School Mountain is still shrouded in a grey fog. To make things even more confusing, my peers believe that just because I like to immerse myself in world affairs and volunteer I have ascended to adulthood. When in reality, I procrastinate, daydream, and doubt myself constantly. I recently received an assignment from my English teacher that asked me to write a poem about my "Rite of passage." He then proceeded to show a slideshow of different cultures' customs to become an adult. Some procedures seemed very painful. Others seemed very communal and sentimental. My first thought upon being passed the homework: Damn. What the hell do I write about? My second thought: Is there ever a clean transition from child to adult? Is there ever a transition at all? I mean think about it, even when a man or a woman is on their deathbed they do not stop learning; to learn the truth about what happens after life.


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