The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861 – 1947)

… every generation was once another’s youth—blank slates with hearts & minds soft as clay, unknowingly vying for a chance to shape a bit of themselves before the world molds them into reflections of its greatest vices.

But, the cycle of influence is strong and inevitable …

Wilted Roses

grown folk have affairs

with younger boys

and girls

because they refuse to grow up

and face the thorn of Misery

leaving the heart of the broken youth

racing

faster than they have ever imagined

because they thought they experienced something

greater and beyond their years

but in fact

they are wounded deep

from fucking with Future

when Present has just begun

and recent Past still smells like Similac

they are left with quickly beating hearts

simply bleeding out

spilling pure life on the floor their feet once had a firm grasp of

before the tragic

This Should Have Never Happened [But Fuck, It Did]

became the title to their teenaged memoirs

and the book covers

are filled with hearts

some broken

some whole

some shattered

typical of coming of age pieces

naively sharing tales of

coming despite age

and making it all seem so beautiful

but there’s nothing pretty about the sequel

and the story before it all

must have taken a sharp left turn

like the life of a rose

basking in all of its natural glory

until everything it has ever known

is displaced

by one human touch

and it slowly approaches

the inevitable end of its childhood innocence

on a one-way road

bound for Wilted