driving blindly down the turnpike
four guys packed in the back three seats
the two lovely ladies up front
driving,
through the complete blackness
the warm ocean that is the Virginian summer night sky
they were high
and drunk
not the driver
but she still drove like a maniac
taking bends in the road
feeling the pull of their momentum
it would have been a pretty way to die

three days earlier
six young men
sit on the shore
of a picturesque canal
which ran parallel to the James
drinking cheap beer out of a cooler
and taking rips from endless shattered bongs
they swam across to the other side
running and jumping among the rocks and trees
just like they were kids again
when the sun set
and the city put on her make up
they were drunk
and they drove home after some time
speeding through the neon lights
of the wrong part of time

twenty years in the future
a man sits in a leather arm chair
nursing a neat bourbon,
he is tired,
he burns with an ice cold longing
for the days
when kids could be kids
driving blindly down turnpikes
drunk and high at the river
bending through the city like fugitives
before the bitterness
before he was so ****** tired