you know that point in your life when you realize that things really

aren't that complicated anymore,
and you see all these crazy people still doing the teenage angst thing

but you're not,
and everytime you write something down about when things were

complicated your english teacher Mrs. Whats-her-face
every year she loves it and the story is four pages long now and you

keep editing little parts,
like the part where you used to say
that you can screw boys and girls with little or no guilt but since

that time you screwed a friendly stoner
underneath a bridge and then were sort of raped
but not really in an abandoned warehouse in front of the mall
and miscarried his stupid ugly baby one month later
you haven't fucked a boy, so you just say other girls. but you still

don't feel any guilt
and you've finally found your favorite brand of cigarettes,
the reds were killing your throat but the turkish golds
are like long cancerous kisses in your neck and your lungs haven't

started going bad yet
so you sit outside your friend's work
with this crazy white girl and these underage persian boys and smoke

hookah for two hours
and share hits with your ex girlfriend
who's looking pretty these days and your mouth feels cool and tastes

like cigarettes and strawberry mint.
and the persian boys tell you how they were muslim once
and converted to christianity and you have the inevitable but pleasant
philosophical conversation after they notice a particular rainbow patch
affixed to a particular denim jacket,
but it's nice and they somehow convince you
to take home a bible and at two in the morning
you end up sitting in your garage, smoking
your third to last cigarette drinking a corona
and reading john 4:1-15, even though you've
been an atheist since you were seven years old.