At one point, you realize that everything has changed.

And that you made it this way.

You ricochet pavement upturned

unnegotiable frienships,

jumped-up-and-left

and thought, for a second,

that maybe you could just say

yes-and-continue-as-usual.

But then you realized there

was nothing to go back to, or be usual with.

You can come back to that place

that you've called home,

and you can sift through the belongings

of

the-girl-who-was-once-me.

You used to paint your hair and talk to animals.

You used to have people, old friends,

at your fingertips.

You used to sneak out of your window to put

poetry on the windshields of the cars

of the boys that you liked.

And even when you see those old things and

remember those old people, not

one part of it is the same,

nor could it be if you tried.

And you've tried

you've tried really hard.

You've tried hard to set free

and go back all those

times that you tried,

tried to forget them, tried so hard to forget them while in

them, cold and dusty train wrecks in the middle

of the desert trying to catch sunset on a camera

before dinner is served.

And you can thank yourself-or-god-or yourself-as-god.

That you can move away from all of those

teenage big dreams

of making it

and you still wonder if you

can.

Until 5-10 years have gone by

and you're completely satisfied

with the every-perfect-little life and

death that is happening/has happened

quite constantly,

all around you.