We wake up early every day; head out to the lake with a full carton.
Watching that gray smoke unfurl into the spotless indigo sky, gives us a feeling of power. We love it. We like to inhale it, feel it fill up our lungs, as we kick off our shoes, staring at the sun creep up the tree line and pour orange and warm over the Earth. We ignite bliss, build up a rocket and zoom off into space. Smashin’ it, passin’ it, lovin’ it, eat up the stars and create our own.
They tell us it’s bad. But we’ve got youth on our side. And that sun never shined so bright, never lit up the ripples in the water like it did that day. Grass stains on our pants, and sweat down our tan backs as we hop off the rope swing and soar through hot air, hit the dirt hard. This stuff messes with your aim. Blow uncertainty away with our brain cells, send ‘em up in the blue, signed XOXO.
We don’t care. We’re bad kids.
Wading in the lake and splashing each other and feeling ourselves soak up the rays fuels our energy. We go out walking all day long, takes away the lonely nights, the ones where we’re wide awake. Mustangs blaze the roads and scream across the city in a fireball. We’re young money. We got the cash to buy the good stuff. Stash it in a piggy bank from our childhood and mom will never know. Skip out on dinner, hop in the car.
We like to live fast. We like to drive fast.
Drag racing’s our favorite thing to do. We burn up the tires and beep and holler and cuss at people. Sometimes we like to swerve, try to force others off the roads. We turn the music up loud, shout along to the lyrics.
Sometimes we're in the backseat, we beat our feet into the floor and grin out our ears. We see those pretty ladies walking along side the dirt and the tires squeal, kicking up dust. They’re dressed to impress. Let’s try to amaze.
Then one of us puts the pressure on the pedal, a little too far. Look at us, ladies!
Right then we could tell you everything about being free. Those pretty ladies hoot and holler at us, as we flash our muscles out the window.
Seeing patterns out our ears, when was the sky purple? And slow down, Jase.
We’re driving like we’re trying to escape paying child support. We’re telling stories like that one time one of us drew on the bathroom stall, that first trip like a rollercoaster from heaven.
Laughing when we feel our heads smash through the window. Glass in our ears and metal bursting and splintering around us.
The car’s flipping over and we can both hear the ringing and everything’s blurring together and the sky’s purple, shooting out blue dinosaurs. Something slithers up our spines and tells us we deserved this.
And a cigarette slips from our fingers; we’re done spinning and lying in the grass... The lit cig hits the gas leaking out from the tank and everything’s hot.
We’re gasping and staring hard at each other.
We’re climbing out of the car, mangled fingers gripping grass and wild plants. Fire’s everywhere... That’s when it wasn’t “we” anymore.
Now it’s just me.
I lay bleeding and dying in the dust staring up as a Triceratops and a T-rex battle it out in the sky.