Growing up

In such a way where it's almost amusing, I get to sit here on achy feet, and a leaning flat pain like metal bars against my chest. I wasn't even allowed to exhale. It's, like a circus attraction, unavoidable to stand here in a spotlight, and not feel the mockery from a crowd that only draws inhale in my mind. That they knew the knives I call my thoughts, the ones they flung at a spinning wheel I know as my heart, weren't random conjurations, but true sentiments in hopes of nothing but wasted time. Why was it all wasted time? What do I learn? What do I gain but the soreness of discarded feelings, ones I've spent my whole existence pining for, to keep firing off like flares of a ship that didn't need saving but acknowledgement, and ones I needed to fortify because the universe knows there are too many cruelties that want to drown someone like me. All for bruises, twinges, and someone to tell me I'm growing up, because why wouldn't growing up mean more strain?