As troubled children often tend
to do we exercised our right
to happiness by taking life
for granted. Death was beautiful.
We sensed the world’s impending doom
& threw ourselves into its mouth.
Bereft of calm we reached for you
the way a drowning man extends
his hands toward the sky when bubbles cloud
the halcyon blue & burst with silence. No
one told us it was normal to
cry like a wave against the shore.
& so we never did. Instead
we held it all inside of us.