Wasted Youth
I lay in bed last night and the realization came upon me that I, was going to die. Not today or next month (god willing) but eventually I would get old and die. The funny part is I used to welcome death, I used to believe death was an awesome reprieve from the mundane existence of my unimportant youth. Death was glamorous, touched with fire and passion, and the prospect of dying at the age of seventeen made me feel so much more important than my peers. Of course now I see that it was just another delusion, teenage angst masquerading as a prophetic vision. I no longer wish to die. It frightens me. I see how the world will go on, without me, and I feel as insignificant as a cough. Small and unobtrusive as I am I still feel the general responsibility to inform others of my realization. Sorry kids, but life is not what you think it to be when you are 17, 18, even 20. I know, I know, I promised never to grow up and pull the "when I was your age" card, but it is simple truth. And truth is relative because it is entirely dependant on perception. Individual and social perception. I know that the world seems limitless and endless and death is way off in the horizon, you probably can't even feel or see it yet. Soon though, you will wake up and wonder what the hell you did with the past 10 years. Wonder why you are waking up next to the same person you swore you did not want to spend your life with, or in the same stupid town you promised you were going to leave behind. So leave, while you can, leave the city, your parents, your lovers, your job, travel from place to place adopting new parents, working new jobs, making love to strangers until you can see death in the distance. Then, and only then consider planting your roots. Trust me, you will thank me, and then you yourself will tell the same thing to the next generation.