by Wick Fields
There are things I cannot speak of
Things regarding my youth
And the friends I knew then
And what happened to those friends
In the years that were not my youth.
I want so very much to tell you
That they steered themselves clear
Of shipwreck, or at least
Made peace with the authority of tides.
But this I cannot say
Because our futures then were written
Not by the explosion of life we felt
But by the chemicals in our brains
That couldn't defend us from
The coming of what comes.