Youth is a slippery thing

We smell like backpacks 
and old smoke and earth.
Dirt-cheap perfume that
grips you like Chanel anyway.

We don't have to worry about "pretty." 
Our pretty is in our 
fresh skin smooth hands free love wide eyes.
It's all downhill from here.

But your gorgeous comes out
in a velvety record collection,
biting side eye, and a perfect breastroke.
Thoughtless, haughty beauty.

Youth isn't afraid to say what it wants.
"Know me like I've never known myself. Don't be afraid to guess."
Not thinking, on purpose,
to make the colors just that little bit brighter. 

Old flower tucked in the hand-cut hair of a pretty boy.
Fresh tar scuffing the green-laced sneakers of a pretty girl.

Everyone wants to wield time,
cut out the bread, run straight to the fruit.
Everyone wants to clutch this writhing, delirious summer
and squeeze its breath right out.

I watch your lips part.
A sun-stroked morning glory.
And we roll down the hill,
grass sticking in my hair like a naughty child.