Along the Way | Teen Ink

Along the Way MAG

November 29, 2008
By Andrew Dobies GOLD, Long Grove, Illinois
Andrew Dobies GOLD, Long Grove, Illinois
11 articles 0 photos 2 comments

How many faces and birthdays will I come to remember
before my eyes shut for the last time
and I find myself in that closet I hid in that smelled of laundry softener
in the third grade because I didn’t belong in a girl’s house?
How many fingers and palms and fingernails
will I see amid how many trees, swinging green and happy branches in the spring
like the clasped hands of middle aged lovers who left the kids at home with a babysitter
so they could go for an afternoon walk?
I imagine there will be enough smiles and enough tears
that if I wanted to I could flood the city of New York
and swim through those blurred lights in the dead of an August night
and sing along with the crickets and the distorted sound of drowned car horns.
Hopefully I’ll have a bag of forehead wrinkles and boxes full of voices
from teachers and friends and train conductors
who say the most unimportant things like “May I see your ticket?”
Hopefully there will be shoes and coats from parties
and sloppy kisses on doorsteps in cold January nights
where my breath will be visible in the air and the ice near my feet
will sparkle and gleam in the periodic flicker of the dying bulb
in her porch light.
Even if things go wrong,
at least there will be the smell of honeysuckle and sweat
in my mother’s hair as she held me to her chest as I came fresh from the womb
and there will always be those fluorescent lights.



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This article has 216 comments.


on May. 1 2009 at 1:00 am
sprinkels-of-tears BRONZE, Eagle River, Wisconsin
2 articles 1 photo 4 comments
great man, i mean really wow!

LilJ<3 GOLD said...
on Apr. 10 2009 at 8:51 pm
LilJ<3 GOLD, Gloucester, Virginia
11 articles 2 photos 60 comments
WOW that was great! you are a beautiful poet...what you wrote touched my heart. Please continue to write and share you gift of words with everyone... You are going to go very far with this.... Good luck in everything you do...

♥ Jackie

on Mar. 25 2009 at 12:27 pm
JennJenn BRONZE, Bangor, Pennsylvania
4 articles 0 photos 9 comments

Favorite Quote:
"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."
— Chuck Palahniuk

loved it. very descriptive... your an awesome poet...!

on Mar. 23 2009 at 1:31 am
brightsideofthemoon GOLD, Rochester, New York
11 articles 2 photos 4 comments
Gorgeous man

ssophiaa GOLD said...
on Mar. 21 2009 at 5:10 pm
ssophiaa GOLD, Falls Church, Virginia
17 articles 0 photos 52 comments

Favorite Quote:
"You cannot operate from a concern of how you're perceived."
--Kevin Kittle

That was really good. I love the imagedry especially.

on Mar. 20 2009 at 2:04 am
Love it! Great work. I especially love the last line.

on Mar. 18 2009 at 6:52 pm
emogurl63092 BRONZE, Lafayette, Indiana
1 article 0 photos 2 comments
wow...that is really really good! you are deffinetly a natural!

on Mar. 16 2009 at 9:08 pm
I like the imagery.

on Mar. 16 2009 at 1:38 pm
Smokey_Jay SILVER, Collins, New York
6 articles 5 photos 4 comments
Man you can Write!

maisha BRONZE said...
on Mar. 14 2009 at 2:51 am
maisha BRONZE, Plano, Texas
3 articles 1 photo 2 comments
Wow.. it's so wonderful I can't believe you wrote that.

on Mar. 9 2009 at 2:05 pm
I very much enjoyed this, glad to have stumbled upon it.

Duckie430 said...
on Mar. 9 2009 at 1:04 pm
Duckie430, Riverside, Rhode Island
0 articles 0 photos 228 comments

Favorite Quote:
“The secret to life is being who you are and being happy with who you are.”
"Whatever does not kill you only makes you stronger."

wow. this is one of the best poems i've read in a long time. it really makes you think about stuff...i like when a piece of writing does that. you're an amazing writer.

on Mar. 7 2009 at 5:25 am
Hay_Wire PLATINUM, Independence, Missouri
42 articles 0 photos 219 comments
wow. i want to write like you. thankyou

on Mar. 5 2009 at 11:54 pm
Austin PLATINUM, Pipe Creek, Texas
20 articles 0 photos 7 comments
The poem took me in an artistic trance.

I appreciate the people who can write like that.

on Mar. 4 2009 at 7:50 pm
kissingdawn331 SILVER, Palatine, Illinois
5 articles 0 photos 60 comments

Favorite Quote:
"when your hourglass runs out of sand you can't flip it over and start again."(changes weekly so check next weeks l8er)

OMG! that was well ...im lost for words right now..amazing and very perceptive

on Mar. 2 2009 at 7:30 pm
lala_bear SILVER, Cave Junction, Oregon
6 articles 0 photos 3 comments
wow that really makes you wonder don't it? nice job i liked it a lot.