Twenty-Five

Twenty-Five

I turned twenty-five

In my mind today

'Tis a good year -

I think I'll stop here

And linger a while,

A decade or two -

Too old for a child
Too young for the truth of

Life and what it can do.

It's a hundred and five -

I don't mind,

I'll leisurely stroll

Amid my urban snobbishness

And poverty chic,

Past the old apothecary

And gas lamp lit homes -

Places George Washington

Would have known,

Coffee bar stoned

Separated from self.

My want for a brownstone

And baby grand piano

The seed of conformity

And the price of conventionality

Just a few years away,

But my existential angst

Won't register yet -

Invincible and eternally young.

~Darkling Plain, Nov. 8, 2006