An Ode to an Afternoon with Friends

My afternoon tasted of strawberry lemonade, childhood, and other substances,

Yours must have tasted of cigarette smoke and stolen condoms from the drugstore.

How are we so different,

Yet we love the same things?

You called me a hippie mother fucker as I hopped into your car

(borrowed from your mom)

and I laughed, and then you said, joked, that you were afraid of me--

And I wonder what my safe choices have given me (besides a lack of lung cancer, arrest, or car

wrecks)--

And you’re afraid of me?

Am I not brave?

But I drank my strawberry lemonade and walked with you and laughed--

I’m not afraid.