Growing pains - Age 15

Age 15

I can feel them standing in the hall, staring, glaring, assuming, judging, concerned through the open door. I can feel and yet I ignore them - I do not reward their accusatory gawking with any hint of a response.
I am busy.
I am reading.

I will not parade myself down the streets, a magnet for thrown stones and distasteful looks, or simply to be ignored - in which case I might have stayed inside for the same results.
I will not rest idly in the yard, under the glaring heat of the blazing sun, as the light betrays my secrets and displays my imperfections.
I will not sit awkwardly in public venues 'en vogue' in the hopes that the hideous logo blanketing my garments will initiate dim-witted conversation with individuals I, quite frankly, despise.
Why am I being asked to turn myself face-out into the world when before the world was content to leave me silent and unnoticed?
Simply to conform to the standard of normalcy it has suddenly been decided holds such great importance that it must be forced upon me all at once, and over again in flippant repetition.

After a lifetime of forming and carving, building up and stripping away in a certain pattern of unknown intent or purpose, I am the hexagon.
I am a hexagon for years of hexagonal nurturing,
And I am being asked forthwith to force myself into a world constructed of and for diamonds and circles and squares,
And then questioned when I hesitate, or simply do not fit.

From now on,
I shut my door.