&-&-&-&-&-&

Innocence Lost

&-&-&-&-&

A/n: R&R! theirs a moral here people! don't get on the wrong side of the track. Kay? Hope you like this. Read and review.

&-&-&-&-&-&-&-&-

I hate this. How I deal with my life I will never know. Gangs, stealing, rumbles, murder, death. I'm only fourteen. I don't deserve this. None of us do. To young. I'm much too young to know this sort of a life. And Johnny and Dallas was much too young to know such a death. I could still remember my parents. My loving mother and father. So unlike Johnny's spiteful parents. They would always smile and pat me on the head. I remember beaming with pride whenever dad called me tiger. I remember how I loved it when mother used to ruffle my hair, much like the way Soda does now. And I remember how devastated I was when they had died. It was all I could take, but now Johnny and Dallas is dead.

Your right Cherry. I have seen too much to be innocent.

I still remember the world
From the eyes of a child
Slowly those feelings
Were clouded by what I know now

I watch as Soda cracks jokes. And I smile. And I smile as the gang fools around and causes excitement. But that smile is fake. A mask that I can slip on and off as I wish.

Do they know? Do they know how guilt eats at me every second of every day? No one knows how low it feels to be unable to be good enough. I want to supply my brothers with everything they want and need. I want to spoil them. Pamper them. My heart breaks again and again from seeing my poor beautiful brothers sleeping peacefully on their grimy sheets without so much as a complaint. But what can I do? I'm only a kid. Or so I should be. Have I grown to much overnight? Am I really the same carefree person I was before? Am I the same kid who went hunting in the forest with my father and brothers? Have I hardened too much from then? So much that I cant give a tear for my deceased friends?

Maybe soda is right. Maybe if I don't slow down soon, I'll find myself getting out of bed with wrinkles and whacking people on the head with a walking stick in a rumble.

Where has my heart gone
An uneven trade for the real world
I want to go back to
Believing in everything and knowing nothing at all

Two-bit, they call me. "Two-bit always has to gives his two-bits to everyone."

How true it is.

I only do so to keep myself satisfied. I think that if I can keep others smiling, then I will too. Soda seems to have the same theory. But it works on him. I make people smile. Friends, cops, people I don't know. Going by my theory, I should be drunk with happiness like Soda is. But why do I feel this pain inside? It hurts so bad all the time. And no one knows. I keep myself well hidden.

But no worries. I've found another item that can keep me happy. Beer. Alcohol. My savior. I wouldn't be able to do anything without the bitter, bubbly happiness in a bottle. Honestly. But it all comes back. When your drunkenness fades. The pain comes crashing back. Renewed and ready to rumble. Is their no way for this never ending cycle to stop?

I'm only eighteen. I cant spend my only life this way. i cant spend my life as an alchoholic

I cant…

I still remember the sun
Always warm on my back
Somehow it seems colder now

People ask me why I hate the kid. Truth is, I don't. I care for him. I love all my friends, and would do anything for them. But can I help it if I feel jealousy when my best friend is so courteous to invite him into all our plans? Honestly, I would like some time with my best friend. Ever since I was small, Soda had been their for me. Always. I respect that he cares more about his brothers than of me. I really do. Who can blame him? But still. Soda is more than just a buddy. He was sort of a savior. He had saved me from myself. Just when I was about to slip into the "wrong" track (not that I'm already not) he pulled me away. Who knows what I would be doing now? I might have ended up like Dallas. Cold, alone, dead with no one other than us to miss him.

Yes it was unfair for him. Dallas was a great guy. I will never truly get over hisunfair death. Honestly, I still cant believe he's dead. Maybe he wasn't. maybe we buried him alive and killed him. Maybe he's out their, cursing us for not saving his life.

Who knows?

All I know, is that I'm through with this. I'm through with this life. Through with the violence and the pain and hopelessness. I want to crawl into bed, hug a pillow, and sleep.

For the rest of my life.

Where has my heart gone
Trapped in the eyes of a stranger
I want to go back to
Believing in everything

I don't know anymore. I just don't know anymore. I feel like a machine. Wake up, make people laugh, beat people up, sleep. I just don't know anymore. All I know is the overwhelming urge to make people happy. I must. it's the only way I can feel worth something. But I'm not. I'm not smart like Pony, I'm not hardworking like Darry, what am I? I look at myself in the mirror, and I cant answer my own question. Who am I? I'm a high school dropout that spends his time working at a gas station to earn money, I am a hood who gets into fights and rumbles, I am a thief who runs around the city stealing whatever I wish. I am a law breaker that smokes and gets caught by the fuzz. Its hard to believe I'm only sixteen. None of these are good things. But it is all I am good at.

I am worthless.

Might as well make the dear people around me who are worth so much smile.

It's all I am good for.

Iesu, Rex admirabilis
Et triumphator nobilis,
Dulcedo ineffabilis,
Totus desiderabilis.

I take on look at the thankful faces of the children's parents, and I know I made the right choice. I do not regret my decision at all. These children were loved. My parents would not care. For the first time in my life, I was content. These adults where protecting me until my time came. I had never been to cared for by adults before. It felt nice. Real nice. And even as I faded to darkness, even as I pleaded with Ponyboy to stay gold, I did not feel any regret. I did not feel any sadness of dying early, I could only feel the lingering warmth of real compassion.

And I loved it.

Where has my heart gone
An uneven trade for the real world
I want to go back to
Believing in everything
Away

I'm supposed to be tough. But I broke down. Why? Is it my young age that I managed to seal down finally broken? I haven't ever cried. But what is this salty liquid running down my face now? What is this new emotion pushing its way brutally to my heart? Like a frozen knife stabbing and twisting? But to see him lying there so still and pale, I cant stand it. And even now as I'm falling down this hill, three bullets embedded in my chest, I know that i have no regrets.

Where has my heart gone
Trapped in the eyes of a stranger
I want to go back to
Believing in everything

Childhood is a blessing. don't throw it all away for the sake of a life as a lawbreaker.

I still remember.

&-&-&-&-

A/N: hey! Well that's done. I hope you guys like it! OH PLEASE REVIEW!

I wrote this because I noticed so many of my friends where slipping in the wrong direction. Mobbing people for money, gangs, fights, BAD drugs such as crystal meth, mushrooms, opium and cocaine, and many, many losing their virginity. And I think of how they where just a couple of years before and It really strikes me hard. So I wrote this.

DON'T GET ON THE WORNG TRACK PEOPLE!

R&R