Ghandi Poem

     I keep forgetting what it was like to be a kid. Everyone always comments on how old I'm getting, or how grown up I look. Its always, "where are you going to college?" Or, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" When did that happen? It used to be, "when did you learn to ride a bike?" or, "How many teeth have you lost?
  
     They try to change you at a young age, stop drawing! do your math homework! act like an adult! Like the innocent child I was, I went along with it. I stopped creating forts out of pillows, I stopped watching cartoons, I stopped pretending to be a robot ninja with mind control powers. I obediently memorized names of historic battles, long math equations required to pass the tests, I learned how to properly write an essay, and what a pronoun was. I "grew up"
   
      I was such an inventive kid. Always creating new things out of Legos, drawing fantastic creatures from my overactive imagination. As we grow older, we are taught to suppress and contain our inner creativity. We are told, numbers and letters are what's important. Nobody cares that you made a spaceship with room for two ninjas, a Jedi, and a storm trooper with swiveling turrets for each of them to control. My creative mind has slowly been crushed with graphs, charts, and the quadratic equation.
    
     When will we own ourselves completely? When will we remember the creativity and shameless freedom of our childhood, untainted by the rules of society and, "the proper way to act," When will we forget the judgments of others and learn to be ourselves. To be creative, to be different again. When will remember we are proud of who we are and willing to show ourselves to the world. Tonight will not be the last time I see the light.