My short story's

Youth

Over the course of my unavoidably finite life I have always looked for the best in people
I believe that every human being has a soul
I believe that deep down within all of us
Beneath our silver hearts and our metal lungs lie good intentions
We stray from these as time passes
Time, an irrelevant concept at the most
Has made us all fools
We agonize over the number of minutes we are wasting as our lives drag on
Throwing away seconds like used tissues
Throwing away people like used tissues
Throwing away our lives like used tissues

We wreck everything around us
Concern is a forgotten custom
We would do anything to forget
We are all very quick to judge

We treat everything as disposable and recklessly dive into the unknown for the chance of excitement
But as an unavoidable result,
We wreck everything around us
There are men walking the streets with shoes tied to their backs whistling a tune about a man fucking bitches and getting money
This man doesn't have a dime to his name and the last time he made love to a woman she screamed in disgust when she saw the disease he picked up from another man when he was 17 and stoned
There are women waiting in the shadows of the alleys, waiting for their prey to come along and take them for a spin just for a Benjamin Franklin or two
This woman was taught that sex was a way to survive and that Benjamin Franklin could save anything, since that was all her dad sent her in the mail, as if that was an okay way to make up for leaving
There are teenage boys staring down at green leaves crumbled into nothing and white candied sugar that doesn't taste so sweet
This Harvard bound boy just threw it all away because the pressure became just a bit too much and the only escape that was left was in the form of artificial highs that will destroy his brain until he's as useless as a used tissue
There are teenage girls who are downing a bottle of coconut rum and getting on the road to go home so they can take their AP exam the following morning
This broken hearted girl who was just trying to forget her ex by swallowing the taste of Hawaii just killed another man in a head on collision
We wreck our lives for the pure possibility of enjoyment
We are all just looking for ways to forget and make up for all these lost moments that don't even exist
A moment is never truly lost because it ceases to exists
Yet we forget this all in the thrill of it

Time is just a sugar coated limit on our lives that we fret over in order to worry about something
But maybe what we should be worrying about is the boy snorting coke in the bathroom
Not only should we be worried about his inhalation of the fast white lady,
But we should also be concerned over the circumstances surrounding him
He's got scars on his wrists that he's gained from war
Not Vietnam or Iraq but the war in his mind
But maybe we should be worrying about the girl selling herself on the street
She's got eyes like fire but there's burn marks slashed across her back from her "mother" shoving her onto the hot burning stove when her daddy left as a way to get out her anger
But maybe we should be worrying about the man with the shoes on his back
The disease that girl avoided will kill him in a matter of months and he hasn't spoken to his mother in 10 years
She's about to lose her only son to the ground because of some stupid party and some washed up drunk boy just looking for a good time without any concerns or protection
Or maybe we should worry about the teenage girl whose sitting in the jail cell drunk off her ass and being charged with vehicle manslaughter
Her ex is now lying under a white sheet, dead as can be, all because she was stupid enough to try to get amnesia from a bottle of forbidden poison

We would do anything to forget
We fuck up our lives for the pure chance of amnesia
We all just want our innocence back
That teenage girl would love to forget how she lost her virginity to a boy who didn't love her
But now she's wearing black at a funeral staring at the face of a man she truly did love with her hands trapped in handcuffs behind her back
The man with the shoes would love to forget how he was once a straight-A student destined to be the next Steve Jobs
But all because of some frivolous party and the sleeping he did in his health class freshman year, he's given up on the possibility of love and companionship and he'll be rotting in the ground next to his father by the age of 34
The teenage boy would love to forget what it's like to live with a beast in your mind with a red name tag stamped with the title 'depression'
But instead he's slashing his wrists in the bathroom as his blood splatters across the remaining cocaine that lines the basin of the sink
The woman would love to forget the story of her accidental conception
But instead she hides in the alleys looking like a replica of her dad and just a little too much like the woman at the post office he got a bit too friendly with
We drown ourselves in the possibilities of falling into this idealistic dream world laced with melatonin and codeine as our brain collapses in on itself and our memories float away
This is the dream
Yet we cannot grasp it

We are all very quick to judge
We are all self-absorbed beings who form opinions on these four humans who are built of the same skin and bones as us
Yet we don't take a second to look just a little bit deeper
The woman you considered a prostitute whose been abused and beaten by a mother that's not even her own?
She has a college degree and won three spelling bees when she was 12 years old
She can spell the word promiscuous faster than you can breathe out
She's got flower crowns wilting in her closet that contain rotting lilies from her wedding bouquet
Her husband left her just like her dad did
The teenage boy, who you considered an emo, suicidal, washed up cocaine addict?
He volunteers at the hospital and tries to help other kids suffering from the same disease that plagues his mind, even though he can't help himself
He listens to only country music and sometimes when he picks his sister up from ballet recitals, they sing it together, extra loud with all the windows down
The man you judged as a homeless, lonely, STD-ridden loser?
He's got thousands and thousands of dollars he pays to a nurse each week to take care of the mother he hasn't spoken to in 10 years
He grew up on nothing, with only shoes on his back, and made himself into something
He made himself into a millionaire over a silly idea that resembled Facebook
And now he's resorted back to his childhood ways in order to keep a woman healthy that kicked him out of the house when she found out he was bisexual
The girl who you considered some trashy, blonde, drunk idiot who just killed her ex by pure accident?
She's a natural brunette and she only dyed her hair because her ex told her it would make her pretty
Her self-esteem is so low it lies in the core of the earth, burning in hell, where she believes she's going to end up because she lost her virginity before marriage
She's got a purity ring resting in the threads of her carpet and a condom wrapper in the trash laced with regret
She fell in love with somebody who treated her like she thought of herself, and she let him take the only part of her she had pride in because she believed he loved her

But now the woman with the flower crowns hiding in the alley has become a victim of rape because of some asshole who wasn't carrying a Benjamin Franklin or a condom
But now the boy with a love for Luke Bryan is lying on the bathroom floor of some high school party in a pool of his own blood, slipping into oblivion
But now the man supporting his mother is in the hospital because of a disease in his genitals
But now the teenage girl is in prison for life

These are all just stories of imaginary people
Yet it all feels deathly real
Take us back to our youth
Take us to a land of the forgotten