12 Year Old Girl

She knows she’s young She’s lost her fun In so little years She’s filled with so many fears Her momma scolds Tells her she’s she got no hold She sits and reads Matilda Momma says to go out with her sister She’s told she’s not pretty She says she’s just a kid They tell her without a boyfriend She cannot play with them She loves to Skip She loves her toys She just wants friendship Doesn’t matter with girls or with boys And as sixth grade ends and she’s lost her friends Who are so eager to go and grow up She decides to keep quietly to herself Or else they’ll tell her to shut up She loves being a kid Still wants to play pretend Doesn’t want to worry about makeup Doesn’t want to worry about growth Doesn’t want to style her hair, just wants to keep it short Told she looks like a boy but she likes being different Doesn’t want to be irreverent She still feels like she’s eleven And just wants to keep on shining Wants to keep looking at the world as amazing She doesn’t know what to do She loves a man who’s 22 She knows she is much too young And knows he thinks of her as young and dumb He gives her a smile and walks on by He calls her a “Pop tart” and gives her a high five She dreams 10 years going by When she’s allowed to be in his life But she thinks then he’ll have a wife And she’ll just dream of being the lonely bride Will she have another chance Was this her only shot? She wonders what high school will be like Will she be able to have another start? She still wishes to make her mama proud But she just wants a well primed child She couldn’t be a beauty queen And couldn’t dance or sing She just likes to climb trees and read And she still wants that into her teens For this little twelve year old girl Life was a nonstop whirl The days go by too fast She feels pretty soon she’ll be looking her last As all her schoolmates gossip and change She still wants to remain strange She thinks about him everyday And the days remain the same, the same She’s older She’s getting older She’s getting older and she wants to go back She takes old pictures, puts them in order So that she can always look back