when your school friends start having kids of their own they’re
too grown for sleepovers smoking cigarettes like red vines we’re drinking red wine out of sippy cups and we are all
growing up in different directions
we've got facial hair and dreadlocks nose rings and pregnancy scares we just
can’t seem to keep our hands off of each other’s business so
we grab fistfuls of tantrum and throw them into the sun hoping these back-lit highways help us forget where we came from I have seen good friends
fall for bad women and the closest excuse I’ve ever heard of for drinking
sounds an awful lot like burying love like marrying for love sounds an awful lot like too much responsibility so
keep you keepsakes to yourself
there no secrets here you want it?
just take it
there’s nothing sacred
hungry?
just eat it no need for permission we’re all just broken people trying to keep from getting forgotten about so
we run wherever the waves are breaking spend our youth chasing foxtails and pretty skirts but
we light fires to blow up dresses and we’ve burnt down more princesses
than a boy scout with a nicotine problem so
we get burned
lesson learned so we burn our first names into palms of past lovers write poems on the mile markers of highways
and toss these high school diplomas into the ocean 'cause we all know what it feels like to come from privilege
welcome
to America
where we bleed in red white and blue vintage
and rugged individualism we love factory workers
and We Can Do It M-16s and the 4th of July so we try to hide behind the lies of Peter Pan
but we
can’t grow out of our hand guns
so we hand them to our fathers say “American youth don’t pull triggers anymore” pretending we are worth our weight in adventure
that we are both World War II survivors and Vietnam protestors we hate our government but love our country so we burn our flag to hide our Bibles in its smoke rings and we’ve been blowing halos
of discontent down Route 66 and badmouthing every town we rub our lips against we are not some retro makeshift bohemian kissing booth
for the upper middle class to write home about
not a dialogue box to be exaggerated over cocktails we do not own bodies without holes in them
when we all have different reasons for the holes in our knees some from writing prayers and others of us from answering them
we have fallen in love with an era we were not born to so we photoshop our photos to look older and vintage weathered and worn from make believe years in shoeboxes,
top dresser drawers and tucked into wartime helmets keepsakes from a time before we had lived lives worth the photographs we are nothing
but fake patriots and hippies without Hendrix who like the good ol’ days
and Levi’s Denim
Old vinyl and Bob Dylan we’re making villains out of growing up and throwing up peace signs smoking peace pipes like the Native Americans
for some stupid reason
I am so proud to be part Native American and even though my skin tone reads like plagiarism
I cite it in my bone structure know nothing of their struggle but everything of their feathers and we love to pickpocket from cultures we are fond of but there are some nights
when I wanna wrap my last name in smallpox
just to remind myself I am a part of something bigger than this nation's youth tragedy or movement as long as the earth is willing to straighten our her spine we will dance with her
even if the sparks are self-made righteous we will write to it
spread your holy skeleton across the teeth of God
dare him to whisper shadow chaser
you are worth more than where you came from
you are not your grandfather’s shotgun
nor your grandmother’s garden you're a house fire without
a name a freedom fighter’s wet dream he knows you closest when he cleans himself a cold shower has a way of reminding of who you have been
and of the bodies you have made caskets out of
I can no longer lie in your bed without checking for a pulse
six weeks sober is just long enough to get thirsty again
please do not get thirsty again
we are all both a first born
and a biggest regret we make all of our own mistakes and I would not ask you to carry your nations' dead
only your own
we have forgotten how to live
without pictures to prove it life only happens when it gets tweeted people are dying 140 characters at a time
and we filter everything
like it’s 1975 tag me “Patriotic”
#America
@afraidtoactyourage
sounds a lot like growing up
(Há pouco mais de um ano, Alex Sparks publicou estas palavras no seu Tumblr. Há dias, leu-as no seu YouTube. Trata-se de uma certidão de nascimento, de pontuação incerta e quase ilegível, onde se regista que a sua mãe foram Sharon Olds e Joan Baez, o seu pai todos os maridos delas e os filhos, o seu avô o velho de olhos verdes que inventou a ciência do amor. Desconhecem-se outros parentescos. O testamento foi lido e contestado. [Obrigada, M.])
