kind of an old one.

You teach me a lesson in coming of age

Out here where the effort of it
reduces me to shaking, I am overall
grey. We wear our hardships like badges

here; I relate the suicides
the bullying the death
the death and we stare at each other

trying to remember if the weight
is on this time or off. I am the alternative
had you been privy to something more.

I list your hardships like a price comparison site:
the violence the abandonment the death
the frogs in the blades of a lawnmower.