Leaving

I see wind like surprise
from a baby faced boy
laughing with our skinny
prospects at becoming
a big, fine man in the time of a
injured ego and a country full of
ex-Pats. We lost ourselves in
music and magic and science fiction
burning desire with Zippo lighters and
hoping someday our records
would be eradicated, erased and misplaced
we are the cream of the crop
the sweet of the saints or
the magician’s apprentice
hoping to hear something useful from
parents or teachers or junkie friends
watching life gurgle from their throats
as Percocet clogs their veins.
Our dreams were dashed in your eyes.
I watched the mirror smashed with
greasy pots and pans
knocked in your head with dead metaphors and
conjunctivitis
cosmopolitan nightmares rushing like
sororities and the fraternity to which you wished you
belonged wronged you by
noticing your k-mart shoes.
We had dreams once. Like skies and
no limit fairy tales. And college
used to seem so far away.