Adult Things

Everything was in shades of gray, blue, and orange

The sidewalk was gray and the street winded along, a darker shade.

The orange bulb in the streetlight beat down, apathetic, lending it's minimal efforts.

I suppose the only blue was you, your loose blue shirt that hung about your shoulders,

The more dominant color that night may have been black,

But I don't remember the black as I do the blue.

I sat on the sidewalk, next to you,

And felt the lingering heat of the day through my jeans.

I noticed the lack of callus on my feet when they thumped the asphalt in front of us.

I smelled the sickly-sweet cocktail of gutter water, scrambling below our legs,

And the fumes of my recently watered lawn.

Your tongue scrambled to accommodate your apologies,

I watched your lips struggle to produce every sorry syllable.

"I'm not mad."

I think I was mad, actually, but not at you,

Sure as hell not at myself.

I was mad at Time, as people so often are,
Whether he stays too long, or leaves too soon.
His critics form a useless assembly line,
I got in line.
I was mad, because Time had brought us to this point.

I felt that he had tricked us,
he makes it seem so bright to grow with someone.
It seemed that I had been running to a point on his line,
expecting the light to get brighter.
So I took you along.

I wanted us both to go towards the exciting point,
the point on Time's line that reads "future".
I was mad, because you never really reach that point,
The point does not exist.
We had reached the point called "Adult Things".

Adult Things: arguing, discussing, fixing, lying, supporting, solving, talking, aging.
I was mad, because we have to start being older now.
There is no going back to problem-fixing kisses,
we have to be older now.

"There are gonna be some bad weeks Ellie, but there are gonna so many good weeks."