I took a shot at slam poetry last year around the time of my 18th birthday. This is as much about turning 18 as it is about starting the first year of college and the anxieties and new challenges that come with it, ranging from academics to angsty puppy love. Read this poem like a list and I hope you enjoy it!

1. Congratulations! You spent your first birthday as an adult alone.
2. You let alcohol into your body, and it tasted like the jaundice-inducing dirty water you drank as a kid.
3. You awkwardly let a boy grind on you, unsure and hesitant.
4. When the same boy tried to kiss you, you made your first escape from a boy.
5. You wake up with regret for the first time in your life.
6. Organic Chemistry is kicking your butt.
7. You drop your first class and with it, your confidence.
8. You have a nervous breakdown — one reserved for movies — and your parents ask to you to move home.
9. You meet the boy.
10. You fall in love with boy.
11. You fall in love with the idea of you that the boy sees.
12. You, for the first time, love you.
13. You let alcohol into your body, and it tastes like spices that remind you of home and of the boy that will never know your home.
14. You have a low GPA and it’s the second time your parents ask you to move home.
15. You return to the arms of the boy, so strong and permanent.
16. Hey, you kind of enjoy Organic Chemistry now! But it’s still kicking your butt.
17. Boy breaks up with you and gets to keep your heart in the separation.
18. Congratulations! Life is kicking your butt and now you know what adulthood is.

There are certain things that teenagers go through around the same time and it shapes how we enter into our late teenage years and our early 20s.