THE NOSTALGIA GENERATION [wattys 2018]

I EXIST, THEREFORE I AM

there's a sliver of me that's whispering in the darkness of 3 am, 

'oh, what is this emptiness?'

and there is a hitchhiker in the crevice of my heart, 

searching for the great meaning in this void,

i used to be a misty four-eyed, hiding under a pile of half-torn pages,

of books i read too many times and quotes i paste in the four walls of my mind,

then a girl comes, cannonball crashing down my walls,

she's loud and abrasive and i treasure her so much,

i now call her my best friend, possibly my sister,

we write our names in blood and stars and gore and cigarette butts,

from nights of sneaking out of my apartment to go to places our mothers forbade us to go,

to sipping cherry-tainted rum at a crowded club and gyrating our hips to trap rhythms;

i transform myself from who is she? to the girl on everybody's lips,

but i go too far [as usual] puking out my guts, glitter and vodka,

i swore i would never drink again but we both know that's very much not true.

there's a list of harlequin and foolhardy boys and girls i admire from afar,

of people i wish i was or people i wish i was with,

but it doesn't matter 

(because nothing really does).

i go from a nobody wanting to be somebody 

and now that i'm somebody

i still feel this emptiness,

pervading me with a question:

what is this existence?

but perhaps we shall never ever know. 

[DEDICATED TO dobrienly x].