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When We Could Fly: A Poem About Staying Young
I heard her say,
“The risk of youth is recklessness
And the reward of recklessness
Is revolution”.
When she kissed me, I tasted
Cherry lipstick and cigarette filters.
She, the girl who spoke nonchalance and flicked out words:
Verisimilitude, subversion of dominant paradigms, recalcitrance,
And love.
We were 17.
She listened to the dangerous music
captive in jukebox prisons
where with old men drank whisky
And made love to sorrow.
Our lives were gray then.
We kept our dreams in snowglobes
Shaking them only to see the reverie of youth disturbed.
I loved her because she said to me:
“You will never again run as fast as you can.
You live real life each time you sleep.
We’ve learned to fly
Yet stand on our two feet.
Be young always.”
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