Knuckles white, steering the road to nowhere
Decidedly driving
To coffee.
Cruising familiar veins of an old city,
E-brake fishtailing every corner
He smiles.
He smiles and laughs like God herself is watching
Bobbing his head and dancing to his CDs
Alone on these streets.

I would trade it all to again feel this bliss.
Seventeen years old, king of his world,
Filling the void left by mental despair
And a wronged childhood
With women and night drives.
Ignorantly answering all of life's questions
So content with his child philosophies
And childish love,
And childish kisses,
And childish regrets.
Romanticizing the thoughts his dragons gave him,
Turning the scars on his arm into the rungs of a ladder,
Climbing up and past them,
Leaping the fences of mania,
And free falling into his insanities.

He was the king of his world,
Seventeen.