Swept under the rug that hangs in the window.

The dirt glistening in the sun.

White Birds flapping their wings beating the rug pristine.

A dark feather of clouds soar in formation through the sky.

Down below theres a melee.

All your past mistakes falling to the ground.

Pieces of debris,held under a community magnifying glass.

Larger than life,lessons you thought you knew by heart.

The daylight takes a bow as the curtain darkens the atmosphere

The neon lights below illuminating those pointing fingers.

That puts you in a box with a broken microphone.

You try to plead your innocence,but theres no one listening outside.

Closed ears covered with dirty hands.

Innocent bystanders?

Guilty of deeds in the dark,exposed by the faint light that spills from your window.

You turn out the lights,and you pull the rug back on the floor.

You thought they would understand.

when I was seventeen

which unfortunately

is an age you have to be

to become a fully formed

human being

activists, like girl scouts

were selling pins outside

of a grocery outlet

for an anti-drugs campaign

that I decided to be

a martyr about

for no reason, I told them

while walking to my car

that "drugs saved my life"

because I took Prozac

and therefore knew everything

completely dismissing them

an entire campaign around addiction

surviving substances that eat you

from the inside out, like maggots,

who feed on you before

you're even inside a coffin

which at my precious age

I didn't know, and looking back

I wish the activists had yelled

at my ignorant, receding shadow

"why don't you go f*ck yourself"

because that's what needed

to be said, I needed to be told that

drugs kill, and to come back

when I was a grown up

and finally human

We often discussed it, me and Winston. We were neither one afraid to die. Nay, we welcomed it, dreamt of it in fact. Death could not bother me a whit, especially not if it were to abandon my bones upon some hallowed field of honor, destining them to be memorialized by history. There is nothing in a boy’s mind which can outdo a valiant battlefield death, and these were Winston’s and my thoughts as our regiment began its first, cautious steps forward.

And as our flag bearer gentled his probe out onto the contested field a “whoop” sounded from somewhere down the line which was quickly picked up nearby until ’Ol Winston whooped of his own right, surprising even himself I think, for he turned to me with an astoundingly joyful smile which spurred our slow marching pace to a trot, and finally a gallop. The race was on then, heedless of any order as us boys set out to claim the cherished title of “First to Cross”.

A lovely day it was, the skies crystalline above with tall, soft grasses cushioning our steps below. Dismissing the real contest, our game became a sprint towards the alluring flags of our formerly alluring country, flags which beckoned us in on warm, gentle breezes. We ran as though drunk, Winston and I; light-hearted and light-headed, giddy with joy at having achieved our moment. It became our own race then, Winston and I outpacing the others, our untried rifles clutched close, the muscular machinations of youth proving superior in our eagerness, our freely pounding hearts having transferred completely over from our mothers’ worried yokes into the calloused hands of the sergeant-major to protect as he would. My God, but it was lovely… right up until