18

I didn't write this particular poem when I was eighteen but rather a few months before. It has a quality of teenage angst in it that I both enjoy and shake my head at in disbelief as I look over it. This was the first poem I ever wrote that wasn't for a school assignment.

“18”

18 is an age that we all must endure

It’s the great culmination of days passing by

The road of your life is well paved and sure

So sure, you don’t even stop to ask why

For why is a question that you can’t afford

Not with taxes and budgets and multiple fees

To ask why would forsake your new room and board

For the question would slow you down instantly

So buck up there, soldier, there’s nothing to fear

You stand upon the threshold of space and of time

You now must charge forth through the shouts and the leers

Of those among you who will not stand in line

They have the audacity to think for themselves

The refuse to commit to your reasonable terms

They aren’t priced and aren’t packaged and placed onto shelves

Why won’t they know what the world must all learn?

You’re old now, grow up, and get out of bed

The world is your oyster to cut and to clean

Your purpose is found and inscribed in your head

You life should be over by the time you’re 18.

While we wait

I apologize, constant reader, for I have not been faithfully posting the story. In my defense, the story of Allysin is a long one and a difficult one to write at a level worthy of it. Perhaps, in order for you to get a better idea of who I truly am, I'll begin posting some of my other works while we wait.

The Begining

            I didn’t leave as early as I’d have liked to but I left early enough. It was one of those beautiful California mornings; the ones that surprise the outsiders with how hot it is despite the fact that the sun has barely peaked over the horizon. I loved Southern California weather and I hadn’t seen it for a very long time. But on that morning I was leaving it. On that morning I had to drive, and I had to drive north.

            It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision to see Allysin again, I had been thinking of it for a very long time, but today was different because today I did what I had never done before. And that was to put my ass in the driver’s seat and head on back to Monterey. It was going to take all day to get there but she was the most important person to ever cross my path. I though about her a lot but lately there was an urgency, a finality to it all. And so I drove.

            The incredible thing about it all is that I never would have gotten to know Allysin if it weren’t for our last names. A thousand generations fought, traveled, loved and died and the culmination of those battles and romances won and lost lead to the two separate yet equally important moments when Allysin was given the surname of Tierney and I, Sterling. Those two names are essential because in 2008 at Monterey High School they fell right next to each other on the Biology, Navy JROTC and Freshman English class rosters. And given the fact that the average high school teacher creates a seating chart based solely on alphabetical order, we were together in half our classes. There’s more to it than that, of course, but at the same time, that’s one of the more important pieces.

            Another important piece was the school itself: Monterey High. It was roughly a hundred years old and it looked it. Schools in that district were always pretty strapped for cash which was why walls were cracked but unrepaired, painted was chipped yet ignored and the field was torn up yet never properly replanted. I have found, due to the variety of residences that I have had over the years that most education systems are shitty. Even college education is relatively shitty most places. You can try to compensate for this failure of the United States School System but that’s a might silly thing to do because school has not and will not ever be about books. My very first period, every single day as freshman was Biology and because of how abysmal the teacher was in that particular course, my life was changed forever.