I have (I'm leaving)

I glance around this town and see all that I have been.  I have been born on the Sabbath.  I have been good and wise and merry.  I have been doubted and doubtful.  I have been down to the deepest depths of hell, and I have asphyxiated in my own blood.  I have seen the last ray of light grow dim as the walls closed around my eyes, and I have clutched that last rung in the ladder of hope.  I have been taught how to walk, then pushed to fly.  I have supported and been supported.  I have lived life i the fast lane.  I have corrected myself and learned from my mistakes.  I have stood up for what I believe in, and I have ignored the taunts of the majority against me, the minority.  I know what it is to fail, but I have also tasted success.  I awe myself...I have lived an old woman's life in only 16 years.  It disgusts me to see my peers with their sallow eyes, dying and half past dead.  It horrifies me, because I know where they've been.  I feel the sting of tears forming behind my eyes when I realize that they will never be strong enough to cling to their  own hope.  I see them splattered on the road after they've drunk their pain away, behind bars after stealing things they'd never need, or way up in the air but falling further and faster, plunging to their deaths as they plunged when they threw their money away.  Now you see why I'm leaving, even though I feel your bony dead hands cling to me, asking me to stay.  To stay is to wilt, just like the rest of you.1