our hands still hold the memories of dolls and trucks, we are not ready for steering wheels and signatures; just give us the brakes, i will put my foot down and never grow old, i will step on time, hold it down till i am ready to step forward,
brake or break.
I cannot start sentences with 'i will', because we don't make the choices anymore, we just choose from the remnants. i am too young for definitives. i want to go back to dreaming, and not making choices - they said i could do anything, but they lied.
take me back to when lying was just telling stories, "just tricking", take me anywhere provided it's backwards. I am too young to be this old; it's all down to us, but what if we can't do it?
I am too young to be a year 12, they always seemed so old. We looked out the windows as they studied under trees and were so very together.
"Tell my future, i'm too young to decide", we say, holding out our palms, but that is "nonsense", sense, nothing makes sense in year 12.

My skin's still fresh from fingerpainting, we try to hold on to time, but it drives on, and we watch it go by in a daze. Daze, dazey, Daisy chains and dandelions were only yesterday, but they've long blown away. All we can see now is a test with no answers, and time, stretching out. We're still trying to grab onto it, to stop it and see it all better, but it won't slow down. We see nothing but smears of paint, as our fingerpaintings rub off on the train, leaving streams of colour, but what colour paint do you want? choose! choose now! We would consult the stars, we would consult god, but science has taught us there are no miracles, and philosophy that in order to believe in something, we must write an essay about it. With no-one else to turn to, we call on eachother, -but can we do it in three different grammatical forms? prove it! prove it now! We hold eachother, and resort to fingerpainting, as the only way to figure it all out. We tear the study notes off the fridge, and put our drawings up instead, but can you tell me the contextual significance of that event? Tell me, tell me now! We hold eachother in silence, tell eachother it'll all be okay - but can you say that in Japanese? Incorrect. We scream and cry, and hope they'll put that in the biology exam. We hold on to everything we can, and try to push our lives backwards.
We stop holding on, as they force exam papers into our hands - we're brought the wrong pen, but too late for changes. Heads in our hands, we leave painted fingerprints on our eyelids, and we can't be young, we've had wrinkles since the day we were born. We wrap our finger-wrinkles round a pencil, and leave our imprint on life.
It's all over in an instant, we settle down to wait, and soon we'll all say goodbye, we all fall down, but we do so together. Everyone's part of everyone else, it's a white knuckle ride, hold my hand til it's over.

We watch the lower years stare enviously, "they're nearly out of here", and sure, on the outside we're laughing and making plans. "How nice it must be, to be grown up and nearly done with school".
They watch us hug and talk about absolutely nothing, they miss out on the good things to wish away 2 years, and we try so hard to tell them of their mistakes, but after 45 pages of writing, we can't use words anymore. We stare at them, desperately, and we try to make them realise - we talk about nothing to forget about year 12, and

we're not holding eachother, we're just holding on.