teenagers are all the more lost in the moments
before and after midnight.
those are the sacred seconds when our thoughts
stem past our circumstance.
we can forget how the past burns like corn and
you’re left choking on the smoke.
when threads of twilight have ceased to stretch,
we can become lost in an incomprehensible horizon
of black on black on black.
a certain beauty lies in
beats
of utter nothingness.
no longer are the grains of summer falling so
quickly
down our throats.
it is nice to breath in the young
air, the mix of dark lust
and exhaustion.
when I am cloaked by the
gasps
of sparsile stars, I am able to dream
of scientific observations
mixed with reality
the whirr of buzzards
beneath the skin and stained glass eyes in every pore.
swat them away
under simple fatigues, more dusty than dirty
and tramp
over those tired roads that
we’ve walked
so many
times
before.
the safety of a weapon flipped off
in newborn hands to
scale the power and
anxiety.
I sleep
in well worn tents
with worn out compatriots and
violent shooters
burst
across the atmosphere.
under famous stars, I grow philosophical.
sometimes I think
that the teenager should have fingertips bruised
by charcoal and ink and miles
of poetry hidden between ribs.
I think we were wild once,
unbridled creatures:
naked as
violets.
but now we are caged
like canaries and
thrown down coalmines.
conscious and anonymous in the dark,
we remember.
it is better not be awake during the moments
before and after midnight,
it is better for the place you are
to be known only as that
than to be lost.