Why Six? Part Two

By the time I was a teen I'd moved away from the shrine to a lost boy
and the sad droop of his mother's shoulders
to the leafy green suburbs of the east.
It was a busy time of life.

Friends
and
school
and
love
and

music

and
Staggers jeans
and in amongst all that stuff
two young men,
second cousins by marriage,
added to the stats of those injured in teen accidents.
Both accidents on country roads.
One boy left by his mates, who thought him dead.
Both with brain injuries.
Two warnings. Take care.
But there was so much to do.
So we wept and reflected and
let life's current sweep us along .
It was sad, but things like that happened to other people.
Bad things only happened to other people when you're a teen.
If you were lucky.