when i was a sophomore in highschool
it seemed like half of my class gave themselves stick and pokes,
homemade DIY tattoos out of india ink and mom’s sewing needles
etched dot by dot into their skin.
we were sixteen;
we all wanted to be something permanent.
but even the ink fades eventually
and all that’s left is discolored skin and scars.
everything fades eventually.
even we all decompose eventually,
but i’ve been trying not too hard to think in terms of a legacy
because words like that are so heavy.
i don’t want to work so hard to have something to leave behind
that i have nothing while i’m here.
everyday the number of our hours fluctuates
with every little decision we make,
everyday the length of our legacy is determined
by what we’re leaving behind in our wake.
i'm afraid i've been taught to plan for the future so thoroughly
that it has stolen my lust for the now.
i could tell you my five year plan
but i’m not sure if i could tell you why i want to get up out of bed tomorrow
or what makes me excited to be alive.
in planning i’m always looking down at my hands,
always looking ahead of me but never right in front of me.
i’ve been trying to build a monument
but i forgot to make it mean anything.
so wash me away like footprints in the beach,
i was never really here unless i was with you anyways.
i have an ink-stained love letter and camera roll full of memories
as a testament to what was, or better yet to what wasn’t.
and everybody told me not count hours, but you know i never listened.
none of us ever listened, cautionary tales like warning signs
and we ignored them all.
we were all sixteen, getting chipped down and broken up
for the first time and we all wanted to be whole again.
you can put back together fragments,
but you’ll still see where the cracks were.
you take your broken bones and you learn to splint them
until they heal up,
until you only remember when it’s raining and you’re aching
for something you thought you buried.
we just a bunch of fistfight kids getting out of love
with ****** knuckles and smirks like “you should see the other guy”
we were all each other’s punching bags
and i think we all liked bruises
because we thought if we pressed them than they’d scar,
then at least something would stay permanent.
but it was 4 AM, all the hours flew away and all my tattoos were stick on.
you were always right and i was always wrong.
so let’s pretend that all this empty street in front of us is really ours
and let’s get pulled over for noise disturbances
like we were always laughing too loud, scared shitless
and staring at each other’s faces
in the red and blue lights until everything looks purple.
let’s stay out until the sun starts to rise like we’ve got nowhere to be,
fumbling around with bottle openers and each other’s hearts.
let’s do things not just to collect experiences,
let’s do things not just to say we did.
let’s do things that will only be immortalized by stories
because i think that’s why we tell stories, or at least i know that’s why i do:
the need to be remembered staves off the fear of being forgotten.
and i am no exception,
i don’t care about the slowly expanding sun, i just… want to be someone.
you see it’s just that a lot people want to go out with bang,
but i ain’t trying to go out at all.
because i used to be terrified of being forgotten,
i used to be terrified of leaving this world without so much as a foot print.
i remember i wanted to be quoted,
i wanted my words to live forever even if i had no pulse.
i wanted to know about immortality.
and i’m not all talk, i’m all writer’s block;
unable the eloquently string myself together like poetry.
because i’ve learned words don’t make you permanent,
they just make you a little harder to wash away.
and photographs don’t keep things from fading,
they just make it hurt more to remember them.
i’ve learned words just prolong death, they don’t dispel it.
so let’s do this.
it’s the closest i’ll ever get to the fountain of youth,
to undeniable truth, to lasting.  
let’s do this, let’s tell stories, let’s talk tongued tied with poetry.
again and again, every night.
let’s get on stage and root around in our chest cavities,
try to find where we misplaced our hearts for a start
and then try to find all the truths hidden inside ourselves
we always swore were there.
because this is the only time i feel like the world can’t knock me down,
because this is the only time that i wouldn’t even care if it did.
because i always want to feel like this.
i want to feel like i matter for one fleeting, fleeting moment.  
because if i could capture this moment in my hands like a firefly
then it would still die.
it would still die even if you had to pry it out of my cold dead fingers.
so something is not good because it lasts.
something is good because it matters while it did.