Neon Angel of Legion Drive
I never forgot you.
But baby, you faded.
I was so jaded.
You won’t fade ever again.
(4Real)
Memory lane, Legion Drive — landmines and dinner for two.
Old wounds, kisses under tables meant for dancing.
And always her — our neon angel,
discotheque sprite of the backroads,
glitter-sweat halo catching every blast,
turning shrapnel into shimmer,
turning danger into choreography.
Shake, shimmy, rattle my dreary dreams;
turn them into something motivated and clean.
(4Real)
She spins in the debris,
refracting every fear into electric hope.
Memory lane — golden intentions paved over with sleep.
Fractions of rest,
years I numbed away.
But she stayed awake for us,
glowing in the static on Legion Drive,
mirrorball light flickering across her skin.
Radio, television,
stream our lives away.
Dance to it, baby.
Play play play.
She was the beat beneath the broadcast.
Memory lane — conversations steeped in teenage screams.
Emo hair.
Blessed be the neon angel,
the Madonna of my memory —
not holy, just luminous,
cheap eyeliner for a crown,
shoulder pads like wings,
carrying the kind of hope
you only have before the world
teaches you its teeth.
Her stained-glass spine
held the light for both of us,
bending it, breaking it,
turning teenage ruin
into something almost sacred.
She learned that trick
walking Legion Drive at dusk,
where every cracked sidewalk
became a disco cathedral.
Blessed be the undone.
Come around again.
I need a stained-glass friend:
refracting beams, bending light around the seams
between our vision and our means.
She was the seam.
She was the street.
She was the glow.
Oh, but life is but a dream?
Hold me now, for heaven’s sake.
(4Real)
I am awake.
I lie.
I quake.
I detonate.
And she watches —
neon angel of the meltdown,
catching sparks in her palms
on the corner of Legion Drive.
Trigger finger.
Happy I met ya.
Hairline fracture —
heart, sternum, ribcage, the ever after.
She traced every crack,
turning fracture into pattern,
turning pattern into prophecy,
turning prophecy into dance.
Open wounds stitched together
with sinew and strength —
yours, your character, your drive.
I never met anyone like you.
I never will again.
She nodded from the curb,
guardian of the impossible,
guardian of the return,
guardian of the glow.
God damn you make me cliché.
But it’s ok.
I just can’t find the words
to say.
She mouths them for me,
lip-syncing the truth
we’re afraid to speak
under the flickering streetlamp
on Legion Drive.
Days full of thunder
laid waste to all my work.
Every landmine shook my core,
walls shifting on their hinges
but never falling.
She held the hinges,
stained-glass wrists steady in the storm,
neon angel of structural integrity
on the street that never quite collapses.
Strings of red lights
bind us in the pause between the go,
the moments where the world grows cold —
too hot to breathe,
gasoline and disease.
She stands in the intersection,
glowing like a warning,
glowing like a promise,
glowing like the last girl left
on Legion Drive.
Die with me one day
when we’re grey,
after night gives way to light.
She’ll be there too,
aged but radiant,
a relic of our reckless youth,
still walking the same street
memory keeps returning to.
Tunnel of thought,
brain fades away.
All that will be left
are echoes of my heart —
echoes of a life you saved.
And her —
the neon angel echoing beside us,
a harmony of memory,
a stained-glass hum
down Legion Drive.
You don’t need to walk on water.
You’ve already achieved.
You crossed the distance
before your feet felt the river.
She waded in after you,
turning the current into color,
turning the river into a road
that leads back
to Legion Drive.
Memory lane — jetties and ebbs
find the slow.
But she sits again
on Legion Drive,
knees pulled to her chest,
watching the tide of everything we were
roll back and forth across the pavement,
her neon halo faint but alive.
Turn on the radio again.
INXS.
I need the egress.
Digress.
Degrassi High.
My hair all bleached,
Spike-bright,
collar spiked like a bulldog.
She laughs —
the neon angel of the hallway,
our patron saint of teenage spectacle,
walking home down Legion Drive
like she owns the dusk.
Howl howl, gaff gaff —
dancing to the irony,
down the lanes of memory.
We have the last laugh,
in our underground ceremony.
And she dances with us,
neon angel of the forgotten,
neon angel of the forgiven,
neon angel of the forever,
neon angel of Legion Drive,
the street memory never lets go.
---
Epilogue: The Walk Down Legion Drive
And when the vow is spoken
and the bond settles into its quiet shape,
she turns —
our neon angel,
discotheque sprite of memory,
halo humming like a soft electric promise.
Legion Drive stretches out before her,
a long ribbon of dusk and glow,
the street where every version of us
once learned how to breathe.
She walks it slowly,
light on her feet,
pixie-bright steps tapping out
the rhythm we swore to keep.
Her bangles catch the streetlight,
throwing little galaxies across the pavement,
mirrorball constellations spinning
in the warm July air.
She doesn’t look back.
She doesn’t need to.
She carries the vow with her —
the forever we whispered,
the bond she guards,
the hope she kept alive
even when we couldn’t.
Her neon wings flicker,
not fading,
just settling into the night
like a promise that knows its place.
And just before the dusk
swallows her glow,
she lifts her chin,
halo flickering,
wings humming,
and sends one last shimmer
down the length of Legion Drive —
a soft electric whisper
only meant for us:
“You better hold true to the promise.”
She keeps walking,
glowing,
glowing,
glowing,
until the night folds around her
and the vow becomes light
and the light becomes forever.
And don’t you dare let that promise break.
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