YOLO
It was spray painted on the last wall in town
In huge green letters that had dripped at their edges,
A ragged logo of youth, a hashtag thrown around Amongst the discontented, a fraternity pledge
To live life to the max; veer off the beaten track, To try everything new. “Fuck tomorrow!”
Someone had daubed beneath it in black.
I can imagine Horace writing to Leuconoe, Graffitiing #carpe diem on the stalls Of the toilets in The Academy.
Kids yelling it as they dived off city walls Into the waters of the llissos. An apidae
Of buzzing youth. But I read it differently,
As I escaped my hometown, after years ensconced In its dead end grip, an epiphanic syncope,
A truism formed. “You Only Leave Once”. And if you do it right then it is enough, So that even if you do have to return,
Like Odysseus, it’s out of either conquest or love -
by Colin Bancroft
But always entirely on your own terms.
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