When you were born
You inhaled for the first time
But only so you could get enough air
To scream

When you were five
Your sneaking suspicions
About the difference between boys and girls
Were confirmed

When you were ten
Boys teased the girls they liked at recess
And you learned what the word
******* meant

When you were thirteen
You told your mom to *******
And spent the rest of the afternoon in time-out
Crying in your room

When you were sixteen
You kissed two people at a party
And felt a burn in your throat that didn't come from
Cheap *****

When you were nineteen
You bought a silver and blue ****
And smoked your lungs into burning embers
Leaped into flames

When you were twenty five
You painted pictures with coffee and grass stains
Your dog died and your parents didn't call to tell you
For two weeks

When you were thirty
You lost track of your life plans
In between job interviews and desperate long-distance
Calls to the wild

When you were sixty
Your hands were like newspaper
That had been folded and crumpled too many times
You read magazines

And when you died
The speakers at your funeral didn't mention
The pills that had struggled for so long to
Keep you alive