Stutter Step, Hands Open, Lights Fade, We Are Nothing In This Darkness

milestones are marked by photographs by notches on door casings that show just how grown up we are getting by midnights spent on front porch stoops with people we only half know drinking mixtures that taste as awful as they should but let the words and movements come fast and steady knowing that it's the only time loose lips are the only things sinking ships We were children growing up in the backseats of parents who rarely spoke to each other the children who blossomed into the worst love poems we only pretended to read As children we played games in the backseat I spy middle seat smash guess which song then, sometime during the middle of awkward slow dances with fresh braces and clothes our parents picked out we stopped getting up early in the morning we stopped counting down the days until christmas we started playing games in the backseat feet tucked or feet spread windows down or windows steamed i've never, that time changed from clueless to reckless to clothesless lasts only the length of a song the radio cuts out in some spots around French Hill but still plays Freshman by The Verve Pipe as we close our eyes mouths open breath fluttering like heartbeats we were no longer children not yet adults but we knew every line to every song we liked and we knew the most honest places we had and what happened when we held our breathe for too long during the bass line