long nights
distract me with haunting thoughts
while panicked tears gather
in the folds of the sheet

(innocence has lost its luster-
been whittled down to the bone.
too soon after it's left
we want it back most of all)

the boy across the street
smokes a bowl to stop his screams
and the girl who lived down the road
took pills to make her breathing slow
and slow
to a residual stop.

there used to be a time
when we all ran to the park
in the middle of the night
before stars started scowling
and playgrounds told our secrets

now what once were children
have become broken hearts
and broken minds,
burnt cigarettes
and burnt fingertips,
fractured bones
and fractured people,
shattered glass
and
shattered souls.