Requiem for a Poptart
April 17th, 2021
Starring: The Youth (14-18)
THE YOUTH
Morning.
There’s a bus I might miss. Nobody’s around to make sure I don’t.
My guardians are off guarding me—one working, the other sleeping because they were all night.
Three minutes to get my life together.
It snowballs
Toothpaste
jeansnotebooks
backpackzipstiedsneakers
phonechargergymshortsaffirmationsdeodorantswipes.
Then I’m gone.
No I’m not
Lunchtime is 12:45. That’s five hours and forty seven minutes from now.
But there’s hope. Hope in a silver package, reflecting in the pantry light.
My bus hisses into view.
No time to toast. No need. Tastes worse. Cook time is the ten steps between kitchen and door.
I’m gone.
Shit
Mask
Now I’m gone.
The bus is my second bed most days. Big wheels tumble over streets needing new pavement, round and round, rocking me back to sleep.
But not this morning. I’m tired and wide awake. The entirety of another day floods in, skimming through the half-open half-windows.
Energy. I wonder where it’s hiding. If it can’t be created or destroyed, then it’s out there.
Like yoo-hoo
Energy
You up? You there?
I’m not looking for much
Just enough to keep going.
…
Yeah that’s what I thought.
Coward.
I turn to old faithful. Pop the foil cocoon, indulge in the divine rectangles of goodness.
Fudgy.
Cinnamony.
Energy.
There you are. Pumping me with purpose, instantly and totally.
God save you, fructose. Light of my life, spark to my days.
Even if you addict me
Fatten me
Drop out my blood and droop my eyes by third period chemistry
You’re here for me. You’ll get me through.
What else is there to count on?