Poem: On Turning Ten

In the poem On Turning Ten, the narrator is thinking about all the times he escaped from reality and pretended to be something. Now that he has grown up, he can no longer play pretend, but instead he has to face the harsh truth of reality. This poem relates to the novel To Kill A Mockingbird because in the novel, Jem and Scout are carefree and immature at the beginning of the book. They constantly make things up and pester Boo Radley. As the book progresses, the kids become more mature and understand more things. The loss of innocence occur to both Jem and Scout when they were able to see and experience what racism was.

On Turning Ten

By Billy Collins

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light–
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring, chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say goodbye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

– Milan Nguyen