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My teenage years

Aren't poetic

 

My downsy teenage angst

Isn't some literary miracle

 

My destructive teenage mentality

Isn't beautiful

 

What's truly poetic is that I have the startling ability to appreciate the flattened mushed patches of grass that peek out from under the late-winter snow, the soles of my sneakers crunching against the gravel that the cold has stolen and left behind in the streets, the gray overcast peeling away and letting the sun's hands reach down with open palms and feel it all. What's a miracle is the fact that I failed to commit suicide when I was 15, waking up that next Sunday morning to my dad watching the HGTV network as he hoped to spark a new idea for his next home-improvement project, completely unaware that he almost found me dead and cold underneath my covers with pills in my stomach, and I would've been a cheap and easy decoration for the house that would last a lifetime. What's beautiful is the bottoms of my feet pressing into the carpeted steps of the stairs as I saw my dad, my vomit-dried shirt long cleaned off in the sink by my steady hands, and even as a 15 year old I felt as if something was waiting for me.

 

I haven't yet figured out

what exactly I'm supposed to be waiting for