Mon anniversaire

Seventeen and grubby knees outside the dorm room window on grass
That stained the dreams in adolescent heads and stars which burned
Closer than the sky had ever been with tiki torch lighting the way
Eighteen and pulling scabs on knees to feel the pains of growing
Heat with air pressing in tight watching you walk backwards
From a heart that bled all its years forever and a day today
Nineteen and hello, goodbye blink open eyes seeing it all
In front and behind the door and this girl then a woman
Wanting more but wondering what all they would say
Twenty and flying oceans dream in gingerbread castles
Filled with a bubbly word it drank on vodka and novelty
Live life watched only from distance a movie screen away
Twenty-one and crash American dreams create kaleidoscope
The twist and shape your colors bend the lights in my foresight
The perfect memory where ought and naught all that is left to say
Twenty-two and mirrored numbers meet to watch I fly ocean again
The balanced title that devises even days and nights ahead in perfect
Symmetry to whisper après moi a woman that needs not break or fray