Youth, at times, is the shuffling feet of a girl, her whimpers and cries, her endless complaint. It’s a boy’s fistfight and black eyes in the classroom one moment and then his unequivocal friendship the next. It’s scrawls and chalkmarks on the walls the crude writing and drawing on the board, an eager ear to catch the word.
Youth is the first dance you had, the first stealthy date, the first nervous kiss. It’s passion burning like fire. It’s holding hands in semi-private room and talking with your eyes, because mere words have miserably failed. It’s tossing in bed, remembering stolen scenes and sleepless nights. It’s the first reluctant parting between young lovers. It’s possessiveness and jealousy and pretty quarrels.
Youth is the ever-questioning boy, who has not yet caught the meaning of the world, who confused by the intricate pattern of life. It’s a boy rubbing his eyes, raising his voice to ask: what beyond the mountain, the moon, the sun and the stars? God could not be made a sufficient answer, because who made God then? And you ask him to be quiet. Youth then, is curiosity and sober thoughts. It’s a child hungering for knowledge, because it has not yet acquired any yet. All this is partly youth.
Youth is a child at play. It’s rich laughter in the rain and vigorous running in the sunlight. It’s also a child’s broken ankle or a lost coin. It’s candies an rubber bands and other little thing in the child’s dirty face. Youth, then, is a boy or girl laughing and crying on the face of the earth. It’s bicycle and bus rides and movies and hitchhiking and reckless, aimless wanderings. It’s a robust boy drinking the sweet water of this earth, hugging the with the sweetness of life, lamenting nothing, because life for youth is more laughter, while heartaches and real sorrows and responsibilities belong to another age, another time, another season. That is youth, partly youth. But then, youth is more than that.
_I was once a youth_