To Fly Straight

We ran into brick buildings.
It was all my fault.
They crumbled at our feet
As if we were the big bad wolf,
Only four times stronger
And half as large.
They will never remember our name,
The one on our monogram
Beneath the picture of three hands holding onto each other
As if the world was ending and it was the last thing they would ever touch.
We knew they felt like velvet
And tasted the sunset.
The world was impossible to please.
It was all my fault,
I insisted we fly straight
Into brick houses
And windows
And ruin stranger's lives.
I wanted to pretend that we were Santa Claus,
Come in through the chimney, unannounced
And bring with us presents and good intentions.
The strangers called us thieves and chased us out of their homes
With sticks and pebbles and mace.
To pay them back for our good tidings,
We knocked their houses down.
Call it an act of teen angst,
I call it self defiance.
The only hearts we were breaking were our own.
But I learned to follow roads,
The path more traveled.
I learned to conform to what The Man told us to do.
I learned to hide my face with my fingers
And peek between the cracks.
I learned it was silly
To ever have tried
To impress you.