We are at it again!

 

We are at it again!

We are at it again, scraping the bark of thick tree trunks with our fingernails,

While we hide behind them, stifling our giggles,

We sit alone in a classroom full of babbling children, a row of benches between us,

And someone breaks the wind, and I twitch my nose, I look back frantically searching for your eyes,

There! I find them waiting for me,

And we break into boisterous, monstrous laughter, we are at it again;

And the years tick away, surreptitiously catching up on us

While we wade through pimples and heartbreaks, dimples and mango shakes,

Distance creeps between us while we are busy making plans,

We make a short fist bump and walk separate ways, carrying embers of hope and a will to seize the world,

The promises of growing old together, with our kids playing in each other's backyards are now mere cigarette stubs on the pavement of memory,

And then, before we know it, the world has changed us; the embers are extinguished, we are running and gasping, our heads reeling,

We seem to have quite forgotten, whether we are running towards or away from life,

And there are jobs and kids and spouses and coffee

And ageing parents and pets that wait for us to return home each day,

And in those few and far between warm, honeyed moments of joy, our thoughts meet, often not halfway,

And we become buddies again, backslapping memories together, while they turn to look at us puzzled,

The struggle of a thousand years and a life of five decades we forget,

And speak only of the fraction of time we spent together, interspersed by meaningless lectures and exams,

And the bell rings and we have to leave for class,

But our eyes meet, and we know we will just skip it, and sit in the sun with sweaty elbows,

And we giggle knowing we have less time,

But we are now laughing boisterously, oh, monstrously,

We are at it again.