something they never told you about growing up is that it's hard to swallow, that the memories and the guilt slide down your throat slowly, and if you think, you'll choke. no one ever warns you that one day you'll put away your crayon box and never pick it up again.

growing up, i never thought i'd see friends die opioid deaths and sprout angels wings under street lamps. growing up, i never thought i'd be anything other than a living barbie doll, perfect and plastic, and immovable.

i think we all die multiple times, the first when we meet our real selves. we did when we stare into the mirror and through the grime, and the forced smiles, and the glitter that sticks to your skin like glue and see through the shell. we die when we look into the mirror and realize that what's there can break, and what's there can't stay.

no one ever told me that growing up meant that i'd have to fake amnesia. no one said that once i grew i'd have to pretend to not know kids that i memorized times tables with and spent hours on the jungle gyms talking to. no one told me that growing up meant pretending that your past never happened. how did you get here? who cares?

part of me knew that growing up was this. i saw the way my sisters hid their tears with mid-2000s heavy eyeliner and rap posters. i knew what songs they played to cover their crying. i knew that growing up was all about growing a shell, not coming out of it. growing up was about living life for yourself.

i wish growing up could be simple, i wish i could go to bed one day and decide the next to open up a little faux italian deli on broad, fill up my sorrows with bologna and roast beef sandwiches.

we die the second time when we drop our dreams and give into the ebb and flow of life's monotony. and this death hurts the most.