How It Ticks

Negativity

I don't tell people what I really hide behind my mask.

One part because I can't and two parts because I know what they'll say: 

'Get over it,' or 'You're still young.'  or, my favourite 'What do you know about it?' 

I know a lot about it. 

'What is it?' you ask me. 

It is stress, fatigue, depression, anxiety, every other mental illness under the sun.

I have to deal with work, bills, food, keeping a roof over my head and yet I'm not old enough to know. 

I am not old enough--

The day I turned eighteen, had I committed a crime, I could be tried as an adult. 

At the age of eighteen, I can go out and fight in a war that isn't even mine to fight. 

And yet I am not old enough to feel the effects that this world gives me. 

I cannot feel the stress that comes with everyday life. 

I am not allowed to be depressed when I am beaten into the ground for what I believe in.

I shouldn't be feeling anxiety when I can't get things paid 

Or if I'm staring down the barrel of a figurative gun. 

All of this because some 'old timer' said so