Try not to laugh: adolescent poetry (1st installment)

Okay, to follow up that last post here's the first installment of my teenage angst in verse.  I know a lot of people have been doing open mic night where people read their adolescent poetry to the great amusement of the crowd.  This is not what I'm doing.  I'm not putting this out there so we can all have a good laugh at how silly teenagers are.  I'm doing this as a way to talk about how real those feelings were.  Once we grow out of the crazy emotional roller coaster that is adolescence it can be easy to dismiss teenagers as being over-dramatic.  This attitude is invalidating, insulting and flat out inaccurate.  If teenagers express their emotions in a way that seems overblown and larger than life it's because that's what they are truly feeling.  I remember one particular high-school dance at another school and I found myself sitting on the floor crying (again), not an unusual occurrence in my frequently depressive state.  One of the cops who was working the dance said to me, "What's wrong?  It can't be that bad, you're only fifteen!"  I didn't say anything.  I wanted to say, "Only fifteen?  At fifteen I could be getting abused at home, assaulted by my boyfriend, mercilessly bullied, struggling with addiction etc. etc." Life can throw crap, even devastating crap, at you at any age.  And it's about time that we start to really hear what kids and teens are trying to tell us about their lives and their perspectives.  So, to serve that end I share with you the darker places I went to as a teenager struggling with depression, bullies and not so healthy relationships.

Installment 1:
Doubt (1991 - grade ten or eleven)
Every time the platform starts to balance out in weight
a leaden rock descends upon the shoulder scales of fate.
I await the day the bulging mass dissolves into the air.
Although I know it's foolish, the pointless hope is there.
External woes surround me, eating at my mind,
creating inner turmoil, my self created bind.
I can no longer separate to whom the fault belongs,
Whether self inflicted or to the hostile throng.
If I be the instigator of this sad demise
then shall I seem so pitiful in those others' eyes?
I would that they refrain from taking such a view.
Unknown to them is the strength that I've  begun to lose.
The one remaining hope is now a distant dream
I cling to this with every fibre of my meagre being.

When I was a teenager sharing my poems with others I often liked to ask, "Can you guess what this one's about?"  I'll spare you that question.  It's pretty clear that this was one of many poems about depression plain and simple.  Stay tuned for the next installment (with much less preamble).