The summer sun beats hard upon her face
Beads of sweat drip down her lined countenance
She looks to the future with shining eyes
Trying hard not to think in the past tense
Everything she rambles about is new
Worlds and words her hungry soul hasn’t read
Yet she’s exhausted when she climbs the stairs
And still she worries one day she’ll drop dead
Old photographs burn brightly in her mind
(But really they’re stuffed in a box somewhere)
Little things roll off her maturing back
(But she’s just pretending she doesn’t care)
Suburbia feels like a gilded cage
And at the same time tomorrow’s promise
She searches, searches—a lonely lighthouse
For answers; the truth; knowledge; hope; a kiss
She’s building bridges and burning borders
That’s the price of eighteen and three quarters