Twenty-something post-adolescent kids
Pretending they're chemists
Pouring substances into their body,
Combusting until their lungs go black.
"Let me test my hypothesis."
Down this bottle.
Light these leaves.

They're trying to find the formula of youth.
Well they found it.
They found it in the inability to grow up,
Consider their mortality and their fallibility,
Consider their society and what they model,
What they contribute.

They all have jobs, have gotten haircuts,
But there aren't moments in which they:
Hate where they are,
Feel their regrets,
Ashamed of what they have become,
Believing there is no way to change.

Still, they haven't concluded
Conducting their experiments.
No realizing, they have found
What they sought.
They'll keep going,
Until their flasks are cracked
And their Bunsen burners burn-out.