I remember late nights,
The interstate lights,
Their yellow hue
Through the windshield
With “Float On” turned up
All the way,
And our ****** voices
Singing anyway.

We went to the edge of town:
Those hills in the country,
That canyon we threw bottles into,
The back road where we cried in the rain
Like rapturous children
Bursting with joy,
And the warmth of friends –
Of people that love you.

Now, 500 miles away
I am typing words on a computer screen,
And I write about nostalgia:
About all of you,
And how I miss you,
How I love you,
All of you.
This is what I’m left with:
Memories and melancholy.

But I visit town often.
We drink and smoke together.
We throw up and pass out together.
We talk about futility and love and humanity
Infinity and *** and society,
Relaxed and without pretense;
We aren’t trying to prove anything –
We’re just talking and laughing and singing.

You’re told to move on,
Like the past is a commodity:
A tool for your growth.
Whoever says this never had friends
That were the family they never had.
They didn’t grow up alone.
They didn’t have an alcoholic father
And a distant family,
And years spent alone in a room
Playing with ******* Legos
Because they couldn’t catch a football.

I don’t want to move on.
How do you expect me to move on
From the people that kept me alive?
That made me laugh off suicide?
That gave me happiness and joy and warmth?
That turned the darkness
The desolation and decay
Into a vigorous existence?

You shouldn’t expect it.