i watched a pack of hysterical starry-eyed children screaming in celebration

become encumbered with the weight of flighty decisions

falling over themselves onto the gritty festive floors, laughing hard in finding their

need to crawl on their knees in search of more burning liquid so they could

feed their buzz kill their minds leave themselves without burdening worry

slinkster teenagers giggling with their desire to sip imagination, slurp

euphoric ideals burgeouning desires to fill themselves up with invincibility

who played away naive filling the air with electricity and fallacy and fun, trying

to see if they were believed and not spied as they spouted simply

complicated lies and were fine tripping over spilled cheap wine, bottles on

the floor on the journey to the bathroom door

who danced grins across their faces trying to hide and liberate and get a taste

of the other halfs lives filling their minds with half empty kinds of innocence,

that fell for the smiles of absent gentlemenly wiles

who faced unfamiliar music and ripped and scizzored clothing to blend in but

stand out for theres nothing in being one with the masses but found there

was no, escaping the draw of the technicolor crowd

who yelled and scratched and pleaded because they were in trouble

who covered their face with shaking hands and ran, down the hall only to find

a mess of dead ends and locked doors smirking peers who couldnt

see, sweat dripping off faces

who stood outside under the raining sky trying to find a light for the cigarette

pressed between baby lips, sparking clicking zipping, inhaling smoke of

a more gleeful kind

who fell for the fifth time and sixth time and tenth time without a helping hand

into sticky mud that was sour and sweet at once, adhering to their threads

without thought to realize the mud was left inside a nest of teal plush carpet

who sang and danced and socialized, knowing they were watched by eyes of

an evil kind

who fell away into the night and

laughed

who tried to break away the barriers without first asking the question without

begging permission, without listening to the denying cry

and hated themselves when they woke for the unbearable fight occuring in

their withdrawn minds

and crawled cross the floor seeking a bottle of a different kind