Youth
by Izzy Kaufman (‘21)

Something about youth
Something about how
every so often you can let go
Indulge in reckless abandonment
Create a new self for a future hour
A new favorite daydream

Something about clinging onto
the car headrest
Music so loud it shakes your teeth
Not quite sure where you’re headed
but content
with life streaming past your window

Something about collecting the traits
you always saw in your parents
Caught in a turning wheel
and finding comfort
from their words in your mouth

Something about
sun boring into skin
Creating freckles
Sun spots
Sun dots
your hands, your collarbones

Something your doctor looks at 
thirty years down the line 
When you have a spouse and two kids
and they say
This is wrong
This is deadly
You had a deadly youth

But you can’t find it in yourself 
To regret