And Let's Introduce

Let's go to Paris instead of Hiroshima.

Climb the Eiffel Tower in our torn khakis and jump from the top into a pool of burning white-picket-fences that never adequately protected a house.

Let's go to Paris instead of Hiroshima and not even mention Nagasaki because they came second.

Our grandparents are World War kids and our parents are Cold War kids and we're Terror War kids and we're all just kids, defined by war, searching for the peace that we aren't.
A peace that would drive us to insanity in just a week of happy headlines.

Let's write like Shakespeare and throw one curse word in, just to see which word they talk about in the end. Let's mark C on all the standardized tests and tell our teachers we did our best. 
Let's slit our wrists because we're in bits and our eyes are throwing fits not seeing the same truth as our hearts.

And let's please don't do that.

The number of people I've kissed depends on who's asking and I'm sick of confidence not lasting.

Weak paragraphs for epitaphs because how could words ever be enough? Weak paragraphs to fill paper gaps even though Less is perfectly capable of being More.
Weak boys bench-pressing in public because no one actually cares how much weight they're carrying.
Weak fabrics woven for dresses so that uncomfortable girls can wear them for one night.
Weak weeks because Monday through Sunday feels like one day when you're wide eyed, sleep deprived and living on a loop.

Once a year saying "Never Forget" then letting it slip the mind for another 364 plus leap year, and maybe I'm talking about that day in September and maybe I'm talking about that day in December but what I'm really trying to remember is why it has to get so cloudy before the sky can cry.

And let's please don't think I'm only focused on gray weather because the sun makes art each morning regardless of if we sleep through, and doesn't even brag after. And that's not usual, but it exists.

Or maybe just because I don't want to be cliche.

And let's not relapse into filling more paper gaps with contradictions today.

And let's put an end to introductions.