Years later, I returned, I didn’t ask,

I just recall the time I lived there,

alone in my own quiet space,

lumbering vacant emotions were near.

I glance around the hallways

see the faces exist alone together,

happy, smiling, crying, scared

defiant, denied, demands, devoid

of all the worry that years later,

their lives will wish might be a return

to that simple time when almost a child

we could all live again, at seventeen.

~

Let’s not forget the nightmare exists

when every morning in a mirror,

their souls rely upon one happy line,

a smile, a glance, a potential kiss,

a date to the prom, instead of alone,

let’s recall that every step they take,

through a sea of like minded souls

contains the trappings, the stirrings,

the mystique of the human condition.

When next you round a corner, take

heed in the eyes, they’re your tell,

the windows of worry that suggest

we’re all seventeen again in awhile.

~

I want to live my life as a whole

individual, one that might relish,

a summer morning, without worry

of where my food will come, where,

shelter will present itself in the middle

of a haunting night that reflects

the somber reality of my life, known.

~

Yet, at seventeen, I’m surrounded,

so why, where is it, I stand alone.