let’s pick out a movie from the thousands
based on no criteria whatsoever.
we’ll half watch it,
half make out,
half pretend we aren’t already
saying goodbye.

when i look in your eyes
i see a young man drowning
quietly
mouth barely above
the black rush of a river
slowly
pulled down
by the weight of everything
you never asked for.

i said back,
stupidly,
right to your face,
that you were the most beautiful thing i’d ever seen.

things are going great for me
by the way.
i also owe everyone everything
and i have nothing to give them
but hollow little thank yous and
another shelf for all their
why-can’t-you-see-you’re-wasting-your-life.

let’s leave this fucking suburb
full of the people who love us
where we lit fireworks off at midnight
and ran from the cops.
this dump where we had the time of our lives.
remember when we drank stolen beer on the swings over there
and fell down in the wet, black grass
where we had our first kiss.
where i found in you something more beautiful and fragile
than i ever thought could exist.

it’s over now.
i can’t believe it even happened.
i can’t believe i was so lucky
to get to be here.
but now?
now?
it’s fuck-this-shit o’clock
and i don’t have money for gas
to get far enough away to forget the people who helped me
become the person i never wanted to be.

so cheers!
here’s to forgetting!
here’s to empty promises and
long conversations with ourselves in the shower
that end in sobs and laughing.
may we stumble
into a hazy future
with a hint of a clue
what we’re supposed to be doing.
thank you and congratulations
class of two-thousand.