Nineteen
one of one.
He was nineteen.
Caught in bed with heat and blood boiling, coughing and cracking. Eyes were closed to the world around him. His hands grasping for something out of his reach, something he couldn’t even see but believed in with all of his aching and dying heart. And while he reached for that something, his hands were held by blood. His young world shattered from a sneeze. And he said, goodbye world, goodbye home…home – a place I’ll never know.
He was nineteen.
He saw his new world with nineteen eyes, looking at the light as if it didn’t even hurt to stare the sun straight on. The dark walls broke down around him as he followed that light, his heart – down! And up he flew, soaring in the sky like he’d had wings all his life. Skied up to his true home and the place he’d be spending all of his nineteen days in.
He was nineteen.
Gravity was his enemy, bounding, keeping him from his own dreams. He found his place. Never satisfied on his planet and always wanting something more. A quiet boy, left to become a man while never shedding those nineteen years being human, just human. And all of those stagnant years spent floating aimlessly in a sea of angels, never doing anything or becoming anything further got to him.
He was nineteen.
Crossing paths with fate, even when time runs dry, can offer afterlife-changing opportunities. And he fought alongside the fallen angels when they found the ripe time to redeem themselves, knowing in his dead heart and living soul that he’d become a man. Nineteen wasn’t boy years anymore. Something had happened in that little light soul he had and then he beamed.
He was nineteen.
And after all of that afterlife he’d never really lived, he fell in love with what could’ve been. What should’ve been. Oh, he should have and he would have, but oh no, he couldn’t. Eight years could be a lot and it was. Time waits on no one, boy or man, and he knew that. He carried it to bed with him at night and dreamed of happiness, maybe for once living with a smile when he was dead. But as more years rolled by, not a wrinkle was sewn and the boy grew weary.
He was nineteen, perhaps.
He looked at the soul he’d sold himself for and saw a man, everything he wasn’t. And for the first time in all of those fake and real years, he loved. It was quiet, like him, and sometimes unspoken and unnamed. It was a smile, a soft little grin that carried a thousand words. Maybe a kiss. Maybe happiness for once in a blue moon.
Never in his days had he longed for someone like he did then. Never in his days, dead or alive, had he loved someone who loved him back. And never before had he been happiest when he knew in his old core that this love was true and given back.
He’d never felt a touch so pure, a heart so warm, never seen eyes so sincere.
He was seventy-one as a soul, and he didn’t look a day over nineteen.
Caught in bed with heat and blood boiling, coughing and cracking. Eyes were closed to the world around him. His hands grasping for something out of his reach, something he couldn’t even see but believed in with all of his aching and dying heart. And while he reached for that something, his hands were held by blood. His young world shattered from a sneeze. And he said, goodbye world, goodbye home…home – a place I’ll never know.
He was nineteen.
He saw his new world with nineteen eyes, looking at the light as if it didn’t even hurt to stare the sun straight on. The dark walls broke down around him as he followed that light, his heart – down! And up he flew, soaring in the sky like he’d had wings all his life. Skied up to his true home and the place he’d be spending all of his nineteen days in.
He was nineteen.
Gravity was his enemy, bounding, keeping him from his own dreams. He found his place. Never satisfied on his planet and always wanting something more. A quiet boy, left to become a man while never shedding those nineteen years being human, just human. And all of those stagnant years spent floating aimlessly in a sea of angels, never doing anything or becoming anything further got to him.
He was nineteen.
Crossing paths with fate, even when time runs dry, can offer afterlife-changing opportunities. And he fought alongside the fallen angels when they found the ripe time to redeem themselves, knowing in his dead heart and living soul that he’d become a man. Nineteen wasn’t boy years anymore. Something had happened in that little light soul he had and then he beamed.
He was nineteen.
And after all of that afterlife he’d never really lived, he fell in love with what could’ve been. What should’ve been. Oh, he should have and he would have, but oh no, he couldn’t. Eight years could be a lot and it was. Time waits on no one, boy or man, and he knew that. He carried it to bed with him at night and dreamed of happiness, maybe for once living with a smile when he was dead. But as more years rolled by, not a wrinkle was sewn and the boy grew weary.
He was nineteen, perhaps.
He looked at the soul he’d sold himself for and saw a man, everything he wasn’t. And for the first time in all of those fake and real years, he loved. It was quiet, like him, and sometimes unspoken and unnamed. It was a smile, a soft little grin that carried a thousand words. Maybe a kiss. Maybe happiness for once in a blue moon.
Never in his days had he longed for someone like he did then. Never in his days, dead or alive, had he loved someone who loved him back. And never before had he been happiest when he knew in his old core that this love was true and given back.
He’d never felt a touch so pure, a heart so warm, never seen eyes so sincere.
He was seventy-one as a soul, and he didn’t look a day over nineteen.
♠ ♠ ♠
This was loosely inspired by "Nineteen" by Tegan and Sara.