Ripped [TO BE PUBLISHED 2016]

8

    

We remember when we were there, nothing more, just there. When we didn't have to be broken promises or mistakes or not-good-enoughs, when our lungs were blooming with flowers, blossoming in pockets of fresh air. When the world was nothing more than metal lunchboxes and booster seats and big kids that could chew gum in class, and little kids who still played with plastic trains and wax people. When scraped knees and scuffed sneakers were pain, and Sally not sharing her animal crackers was problems.

We remember, better than we remember the endless starry nights, the feel of his lips, clumsy, searching, the first time they ever touched. Better than the first time second base was for more than baseball, more than the sour taste of whiskey, as crisp as the crackling fire and dead autumn leaves. More than first love, first hate, first loss. More than mean girls that did more than pull on your hair, that pulled on your heartstrings until you thought they were going to break, and to this day you still don't know if they did or not. More than history classes next to him, hand written notes with her, lunch tables filled with them. More than the silence that filled every single aching second spent alone, every decimal decibel creating more than just words, more than just sentences, but accusations, and cat-calls of inadequacy, and whispers, endless whispers, meant to emphasize the fact that silence was only a theory.

Because we remember what we lost more than what we had. We remember it because it was taken from us before we'd even had the chance to appreciate it. It melted like crayons on the pavement, staining our memories but slipping through the spaces of our fingers. It left; a bird that couldn't be taught or tamed. It was ripped off like a Band-Aid before the bleeding stopped, like a happy ending that never got to settle. Our childhood was taken from us like the liberty that we established but never really obtained.

We were the broken generation, meant for drug wars and bad music, technology with more intelligence than the humans that created it, children set on self-destruction and homes set on the ideals to raise them for it. We weren't meant to be happy. We were meant to taste a single drop of youth before having it torn to shreds before our eyes, our souls forever yearning for that innocence but never, ever, finding.

We were made to be broken.