untitled poem by the ocean

we were standing by the ocean,

     (you had been growing and i was still the same),
and we were looking over at denmark,
     and you said things about life that were serious,
          i was dying inside of cancer,
you looked sad in all the photos,
     and i didn't want to be in any of them,
the portrait of us by the ocean was in gray-scale,
     the sky was the color of sleet,
          the sand ashy and pale,
the grass browned and dead and dying,
     and it all became very clear that i had ruined everything,

back home the apartment was empty,
     i had a panic attack in the elevator,
and i bashed my head against a cabinet,
          and i wanted to die,
          (like i always did),
and all the memories were crystal clear,
          even,
the ones i thought i had forgotten,
     like knowing something i had never learned,

the summer before i smoked on the balcony and felt alone,
          i could hear my neighbors,
(fighting, f*****g, drinking),
and i wanted to be like them,
     instead of disappearing in a flood,
          - losing myself in aphasia,
sleeping all day,
     sweating through the sheet,

and all i can say after all of these,
     is never grow up to be like me