Adolessons

Can’t run down the street
in fluorescent pink flip flops. The sun
searing tic-tac-toe on your
back. Too old to not worry, too
young to know what to worry
about. Teenager. To be
stuck be-t(w)een slippery slides
of kiddy pools and the
sea of adulthood. So close to
effortlessness, but those headlights
stuck in the rearview. It’s leaving,
pulling away, but still close enough
to touch. Texture of silk smooth beneath
your fingers, soft as a baby. Distance makes
the heart grow fonder, and proximity is
the harbinger of pain. Trapped. Yawning chasm
unhinges its maw, and you’re stuck swimming
in its saliva. One shore youth, the other maturity.
Which way to turn, do you even
have a choice? Current
pushing you every which way, all you can do
is try to stay afloat. You have to decide.
It’s time to know. Can’t be a kid
forever. Please -
just a little while longer.
To reach out your hand and still pet
a unicorn. Breathe in, exhale dragons’
flame. Never be this close again without being
in it. Why is it memory only sharpens
as time starts slipping faster
and faster. Cruel joke, you want

to hold “then” in your palms,
back when time was
as viscous and flexible as
honey. But the camera in your
mind’s eye was pixelated,
corrupted. You’re sprinting
in the ankle length grass. Chasing what?
Foot catches and you crash down, down,
down.
Head splitting open with a
dull thud. Silver fluid leaking
out of your
forehead. Coagulating, writhing,
on the grimy backyard turf. Sparkling and
shimmering, images rolling back. Memories spilling
in the dirt. Adol-essence. Hardening into crystals,
burrowing deep into the ground. The
farther you crawl along,
the more of it you lose.
Drip, drip, drip.
Staring into the shimmering pool, how can
future mirror the past when yours is
shattered. You can’t, you
can’t do it, I just can’t do it. I gnaw
at the bars of a cage shoved in a
one-way train. I never wanted to
leave, Peter Pan never came.
Please, just a little while
longer.