Trying to bat cliches away from my face

I should have grappled with impermanence
In my adolescent brain,
instead, I fretted how to best break the good news.
I planted a tiny furtive garden
salting the soil with expectations of second chances.
Safe inside the confidence of a ceaseless spring,
I cradled my sweet fragile blossoms
and inhaled the scents of belonging,
of existing always,
of nothing lost.
and now my adolescent brain is frozen in terror:
winter is a gate we walk through one by one.
This garden will be repossessed.
What will we become when we finally melt away?
Will anyone find my words one day?
Everyone believes youth will always shine from the mirror
It can't be real, watching your own face wilt and droop with autumn
Going numb piece by piece
I leaned on your steady chest and thought,
this heart. this heart. this heart.
I don't want it to ever stop beating.
You made me alive, peace by peace
Early summer in our garden today
We hum, and sing, and gather
Across the river, we can see the lights go out
gunfire, brainfire,  lay waste
Til we all lay, waste.
When that final hour comes,
If we are lucky enough to recognize it
I want to lay my wounded head on your softening chest
this heart. this heart. this heart.
this heart.
this
heart