Our bodies share the same age,
Not separated by much months, yet
I believe I have yet to find the gold
That runs through your veins,
Or the bright youth that lines your soul.
Can you help me find the rose-tinted glasses
You see the world through?
Will you tell me how I can radiate with the sun's blessings
As you do?

We have been surviving the same bullets,
But by ourselves.
Yet, somehow your wounds seem to heal faster.
I watch you get up and go while I still tend to my own.
Oftentimes I have to reach far to keep up with you.

Despite the unkindness of circumstance and proximity,
Somehow I feel that I have held your hand through it all.
And sometimes, in the small moments of reality
That peek through the stage lights and camera flashes,
I feel you hold back.

And in that moment, we are just seventeen year olds again.
Just that, nothing more.

Can I be eighteen with you too?