THE PARTY'S OVER...

                                 'Party hearty' ~ a mantra for our youth;
                                 nights portenting frenzied, mindless pleasures...
                                 stimuli quelling feared and darker truths;
                                 loneliness the yardstick of their measure.

                                 Merriment whispers of promised escape;
                                 of shelter from rejection and sorrows...
                                 then flees in cowardly fear of daybreak ~
                                 defeated by encroaching tomorrows.

                                 Cacophony and drunkeness distract;
                                 anesthetize the lost and wounded soul...
                                 the new day's dawn refuses to look back ~
                                 the sum of the remnants make not a whole.

                                 Party for now but keep the curtains drawn...
                                 reality looms in the coming dawn.