Remember the days when

we’d skip school to hang all day

on a thread of self-respect and -discovery.

Sit outside and try holding our cigarettes in different ways.

Talk a lot, make excuses for irresponsibility.

Discovered when people were lying,

and how to reconcile a broken heart

with every lyric for every song.

Those were when I had no idea how difficult the work was,

no idea how difficult i was.

Trying to live up to an image that I had given myself - signifying my own fate.

I didn’t consider the desperation accompanying over-caffeination… or

just how beautiful I was, and what was going on in his mind

every time I showed my face.

I considered myself harmless, worthless.

In retrospect, I think we were happy,

underneath a protective cover of teenage depression.

We were happy, excited, interested, hopelessly in love with our bodies and attention.

Addictions flourished and clothes ripped, and too much gas was used going on new adventures,

rumbling up the hill, to ruminate on that single tree in the middle of the field, and blow the ash that sneakily drifted back through the car window.