i.
i'm twelve years old the first time my life ever ends. the streamers and balloons hung up in the hall are gaudy and reminiscent of a garbage truck. graduation goes by faster than any of the hour-long rehearsals. perhaps it's my imagination, but the audience blurs out before my eyes when they hand me my makeshift diploma and i bow a last farewell.

basement one.
doors opening.

ii.
thirteen is a big deal. god is found in the depths of an abandoned foxhole and lost to the fading glamour of megachurches, pseudo-friendships, pomp and circumstance. maybe some goodbyes are for the better. it's a hard lesson to learn.

level one.
doors opening.

iii.
i'm fourteen and i haven't seen the world yet, raw and naive and soft to the touch. i open the newspaper in the morning, hoary in my hands, and i discover that some names don't make the front page until they're in lieu of an obituary. i never read the newspaper again.

level two.
doors opening.

iv.
when are you closer to twenty than you are to ten? it's competition season when the stroke occurs in a land abroad i know nothing about. i visit every day after school. these are not all lies: sometimes it's harder to see uv drips and nurses' charts than a gravestone.

level three.
doors opening.

v.
sweet sixteen is anything but. the previous statement is a flagrant lie- but then it has always been easier to say goodbye to the bitter and the reviled, than all we have ever known and loved. the walls of hospitals, of schoolyards, of departure halls, have heard the sincerest au revoirs, spilling summer-stained from unpainted lips and falling into shaking hands.

level four.
doors closing.