I sure was.

I Was 17
I was 17.
I was sure.
I knew things.
I was 17.
I was free.
I held views.
I was 17.
I was romantic and certain.
I was honest and fearless.
I was 17.

I was seventeen once, and not so long ago.
It surely seems absurd to reflect upon the age of seventeen.
You may be seventeen now.
You may not have yet reached that age.
You may be like me and just past that year.
That lovely sure confusing blurry year.
And to those who have far surpassed that place in life,
You may wonder at my gall. At my nerve.
What do I know of growth? Of change?
What do I know of the difference between young hearts
Young love
Young dreams
And one that has grown mature with the passage of time?
But I surely know of none better to speak on being seventeen
Than one who is now just beyond the age.
A truth I've come to accept is we don't really mature;
We only grow older.
We learn to act appropriately in differing situations.
But our heart, the proverbial heart, remains the same. 
Sure, our mind obtains more knowledge.
We gain experience and are better for it.
But as for this maturity business, it is here-say,
At least as far as I can tell. 
At just nineteen, I straddle the chasm that separates the child and the man.
I am child and I am man.
And it's funny.
The child knows something the man doesn't know.
And that is a paradox in this in between.
This knowledge, not quite forgotten and almost remembered.

I will soon be 20.
But I was 17.