Live Fast, Die Young?
Here’s another teaser for my next poetry collection. :-)
Live Fast, Die Young? / By: Nick Ulanowski
There once was a time you believed you’d probably die young
Life was a waking dream with an early outcome
You pushed the limits of the rules and you flicked off the cops
You tagged the walls with a circle A, yelling “can’t stop, won’t stop”
You trespassed for no reason, it was just for shits and giggles
To relieve your anger, you pondered all of life’s puzzles and riddles
You prayed to the moonlight every night for your suffering to end
The tangerine sky turned to black as you said goodbye to your dead friend
He left you behind on this earth to rot in isolation and cry
Exhaling joint hits out your nose in the vacant lot where you fly
The light of the moon was your only serenity in a life on the run
You were gonna live fast and die young in hedonistic fun
He was like your brother ’til the end or so you guys had said
But then he was left for dead, staining the carpet bloody red
You failed to have his back when he was stabbed to death
Without your brother by your side, you wondered what was left
You figured you would join him as it was you against the world
Be immortalized by a framed graffiti sketch or a boxcar mural
You felt alienated by established customs past down to you
Other than reckless behavior, what else could you do?
It made you feel rebellious, it made you feel so strong
The rhythm of your drum played instead of society’s song
Like James Dean, you wanted to go out blasting
Or like Fred Hampton, you could be a martyr everlasting
But the years went by and your death never came
You past age twenty-five, it was all so insane
Your prediction was wrong and you had to deal with it
Make something of yourself instead of living in shit
Leaving a young, good-looking corpse was a lost bet
With consequences catching up and expectations never met
Now you’re in your mid-thirties and you just don’t care
You just want to read a good book in a comfortable chair
It doesn’t make you a sellout, it doesn’t make you a pawn
It doesn’t even mean you compromised or your fire is gone
It just means life rolled on and you must now adapt
But don’t ever forget where you came from or your ideals you pack
