[Certain]

rumspringa /ˈro͝omspriNGə/ a period of adolescence in some Anabaptist communities, including Amish and Old Mennonite branches, in which boys and girls are given greater personal freedom and allowed to form romantic relationships, usually ending with the choice of baptism into the church or leaving the community.

Mary had this sly smile full of faded teeth.
She said she'd pray for me. She said she'd wait,
she'd brace herself for pain but stay for me.
We sat and sang and cried.
We played the beats that we had mastered line for line.
I told her I'd be back.
I touched her arm so gracefully
and sold her on my tact,
full-knowing I'd retract.

Jason had these deep eyes full of blue and hazel.
He'd loosely amble across the bar to the juke-box handle
and pick a tune to mangle in his broken Philly accent.
He joked that it made bad sense to hold me when we had sex
because the closer that our paths'd get,
the forks would sharpen more.
He'd shown me how to laugh and relax my hardened core.
We'd lapse into a TV binge, reality or sitcom,
Saved by the Bell and Flintstones,
everything I'd missed on.

Jason had this brown hair that curled in balls at random.
I'd twirl it all in handfuls
while he worked on drawing mansions.
The architecture firm was my ticket to the city,
and I enlisted in it quickly with a visage nearing giddy.
The internship paid shitty, but it gifted me with living
in a way I'd always dreamed
outside the prison of my pity.
And Jason was my tour guide. We watched the Flaming Lips.
We watched Freeway and Beanie.
We watched Journey and Kiss.
We took journeys and kissed, and our love flambéd the wicks
of the candles that were like a touch of home,
even as they bathed our sins.

Jason had a large nose that betrayed his Jewish heritage
and often came in handy when we fused cocaine and heroin.
The sex was looser, better then.
We'd rave, then use, then enter in.
But phases soon turn pestilent; escapism loses relevance.
The summer was ending.
I'd make my future evident.
I'd stay, refuse the exodus.

Mary had such perfect cursive, sans bumps and depressions.
I'd thumb through her letters
and wonder if ever she'd wondered if ever
I really could love her forever.
Her deportment stayed humble and measured.
I tried to harness the same but kept discarding my mumbling letters.
The targeted pain of hearts when they break
is enough to humble a hector.

Jason had a wilting grimace as he helped me onto the train.
Lifting my black hat to my head, he tugged it hard.
Then he waved.