Footprints Poem by Charles Lara

Winter shakes
some snow
and blows
cold air
and we stand
on a heating vent
outside
near the university
drinking
cheap beer
listening to
heavy metal
and smoking
salem cigarettes.
The night is
in full swing
and most of us
are getting
a little too old
to hang outside
like bums
and drink
and bullshit
out nothing
that will
mean something
but kill
another hour or two.
The dollars are
hard to find
and four years ago
feels like a lifetime
when you are 22.
We stood,
all seven of us
bobbing heads
to loud
senseless music
coming out
of an oversized
poor sound quality
boom box
with a cassette player.
We pass a joint
of cheap homegrown
prematurely dried weed
pretending to get high.
The conversation
goes nowhere
and we all know it.
We look at
one another
and see
our stop
is coming
nothing is forever
and life pulls
out the rug
we once found
so comforting
and replaces it
with a conveyor belt
and we do nothing
to get off
as we slowly
roll off
the last stage
of our innocence
the boyzz become men
and after this
it just isn’t the same
we know it and we
do nothing to stop it
from happening...