I Drew A Picture Of Us In A Blue Balloon.

There’s nothing wrong. I am girl fighting over bathroom jurisdiction, clothes still a little soggy from the clothesline, running in time with traffic lights and yes, I do catch that school bus Monday through Friday, you thought I wouldn’t, didn’t you?

It’s nothing glamorous. Elbow on desk, cheek in hand, books splayed and sweater discarded on floor, as it never stays long enough on the backs of these chairs. Long-legged boys can’t fit in desks. When I stretch, tucking my feet behind me, it is their not-apologetic, too-big shoes I crash into. The system and I are uneasy together, but we get along. I am non-existent in class, a non-revolutionary. We are drawn in by desire, affirmations of adulthood that get us through eight hours of government issued learning. Teenagers are naturally set to unhappy, or what they term as unhappiness. I am girl in economic terms, and it puzzles me that no matter how much I reassemble or rearrange there is not enough resources to help these little humanoids into satisfaction.

I have not quite finished puberty. I’m, we’re all still so awkward. We haven’t come to a consensus yet, we’re still uncomfortable with shhsexualityshh, but we are somehow snapping, somehow growing bold. My bones have matured and slipped into final resting positions, but my brain has yet to sort out the rational from the irrational, has yet to evolve to a point society will deem acceptable. What will I think then, when I am older and the paths of my neurons have grown to encompass hundreds of thousands of miles? Many things, maybe, if I am lucky. Perhaps I will be a little less stubborn, a little more sympathetic, but most of me is already unfixable, for better or worse. I know I can’t be separated into primitive pieces and made into a better person, and I think, what’s so very wrong with that?

I am girl who is not much, really. Look here, it’s true. I am girl trying to memorize dates for Spanish civil wars, forgetting that jacket on the coldest day of the year, listening to twee music in dingy headphones. I am a middle class fifteen year old at the national average for weight and height, girl indistinguishable in yearbook photos, in crowds, girl bumping into doorstops and the recipient of hearty bless you‘s when sneezing into elbows. But there is something different about me, something maybe no one knows. It’s simple, it’s downright stupid, and I don’t know how to define it, how to say it without feeling guilty, without negative connotations.

I am happy, dear God, I am happy, I am happy. There’s nothing wrong. I don’t need to be prettier, skinnier, taller, okay? I don’t need a boyfriend, walls painted sage green, miniskirts in different cuts and colors, is that alright? I don’t need to complain about the concerns of my neatly-ordered, clean-cut mornings and afternoons and evenings and nights. I could always be doing better, but I am okay now. Is there something wrong with me, something faulty in the part of me that’s supposed to disapprove, is supposed to be swollen with hormones and oh-so-righteously indignant? I really don’t know, and I really don’t care. All I know is that I am happy, I am happy always, and that is more than enough for me.