youth

i drove past my old high school on the way home from buying alcohol. she's still in there, somewhere, probably hanging around the science building wondering why everyone else seems to understand how to be a person in the right way. she's probably listening to muse on her cheap headphones, and i'm driving my car, and i'm listening to phoebe bridgers, and it hits me midway down the A580, driving 70 in a 60, that i've grown up.

i drink myself to death and wake up in the morning, wondering if it gets any easier to wake up in the morning. i quit the booze for weeks at a time, merely for the bragging rights i get from not having a problem. i smoke. i smoke a lot. i've matured into my voice, now. i can sing like a bluebird until my lungs give out and i forget every song i ever thought saved my life when i was 15.

i watch television programmes that i watched as a pre-teen. somehow, they're less funny now that i understand the jokes. it's been a million years since i rushed home at 6pm to watch the simpsons with my dad. i always used to say that i'd have my life sorted out by 25. i always used to say i'd understand how to be functional without needing to be 5 shots down in a club, screaming my own name at the DJ.

i always thought that people who had made it by my age were exceptional. now, they have modest two-bedrooms in the same towns they grew up in, and their lives have begun. and i'm growing up. i grew with them, grew out of them, thought i was bigger and better than it all. ask me what i want to be when i grow up - go on, ask. i want to be a superstar. i've grown out of wanting to be an astronaut.

i listen to songs i loved at 18. i remember every lyric. the aux cord in my car has rotted away; i have to provide the backing vocals myself. the headlights illuminate the dark road like spotlights on a stage, and i drive home to my parents' house - a four-bedroom where everyone else has already moved out.

is this all there is? is this all there is? i'm screaming it into a microphone, blinded to the empty audience, astro-starlight in my eyes. god, is this all there is?

October 2022