Happy Birthday

For a while, youth only existed in Europe.

It existed at home in London over cups of milky tea and Star Wars posters.

It existed in four day trips to Amsterdam over joints in coffee shop windows and in Barcelona over five litres of sangria stuffed between paella and palm trees.

But it couldn’t exist in New York between trashed scripts and unwanted touchings and broken hearts throbbing on rusting subway tracks.

Couldn’t exist in a starless sky overtaken by light pollution and cynicism.

The cynicism sinking so deep through the pores of once infantile skin,

Weathering it. Leathering it.

Time washing over it and through it like waves angrily crashing against the shores.

But youth came to New York in the crashing waves on the night before the final final of spring semester.

And the same subway tracks that are rusting with blood and heart beats carried us to Coney Island.

Coney Island at 2:30 in the morning, pre-season. Completely deserted.

Aside from that guy doing yoga under the sheet in the middle of the beach.

Youth could be found in the spliffs we passed, in the shooting stars as they rocketed and fizzled, in the conversations that fell flat with every breathtaking moment.

The shooting stars, the dying dead stars, we imagined they would fall right onto our restored skin as we sang “Happy Birthday” and our toes froze in the sand.

Youth was brought to New York as meteors collided with our faltering dreams, the night before the final final of spring semester.