To A Lost Boy Poem by Gus Schreiber

I scan through the scattered letters of my youth
and amidst the scorned rage and hypocrisy
something burns.
A beaten heart's desperate promise upon himself,
from weak and childish arms, a declaration
of future strength.
Was childhood's oppression the greatest gift,
the endless 'if only's, the freedom of 'one day'?
Was it ever? Is it now?
My lost friend, do you remember
the sacred promises, swept away in the seas of maturity?
Please, tell me.
Did we merely exhaust our lungs into summer nights
wasted amidst streams of our own groping intoxication?
Were you there?
On the horizon the rising sun looked so small
to our young and budding eye's reservoir of idealism.
Have we rode our words upon our fated path,
now balancing on the precarious edge of strength,
and turned from its harsh rays?
Was it our penultimate sight of unconquerable sun
or our unnoticed sunken wandering
toward safer, treaden paths?