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.