My best years are over,
how bittersweet, this home run.
Dark chocolate I
would never have ate 'til now.
I'm no child, but still
belly-achingly young. Still pregnant
with hopes and dreams, still
curled up
in a wine-soaked ball. Just happy now,
not teary-eyed, lamenting.

The best days of my life
were mostly awful. Some were sunny,
some were sweet. I was
torn
between reckless abandon
and believing I couldn't feel worse.
My arms and legs
slowly self-dissected. My mind
slowly unravelled. Boys "broke"
my heart to smithereens. I took
my first
drink.

I loved my third or fourth drink,
puked up my fifth or sixth,
I drank
away irrelevant sorrows. Now
I watch my sister do the same.
She's sixteen in
one
month. I want to tell her
this is the last day
of the best years of my life.

I have crossed the rope bridge,
climbed the mountain.
I'm one step, one roll over
in the bed
from the top, the end,
the fourth base. Adulthood
welcomes me quietly. I am
triumphant. I am
the youngest
I have ever been.