To be seventeen
and young and mean,
where the future is mine,
or so is the slogan
of those left behind.

To be seventeen,
still lit by the flame
of dear curiosity
and burning ever bright.
The age of experimentation,
a way that should never die
if you expect to have
any sort of life at all;
a train of thought
that should never
arrive at the terminal.

Full of spirit
and adventure,
to be seventeen,
built like a machine
without a schedule,
following whatever
seems right, and ignoring
the opinions of those
too bigoted to understand
a simple Poem.

To be seventeen
with an imagination
of indestructible
titanium reinforcing,
enclosed around an
ever wandering mind,
and if superstition
held any ounce of truth,
I’d already be blind.

But I seem to be
well enough,
despite a liver
that’s worth ****,
and will probably be
worth even less
in seventeen more years
to come.

Until then, however,
I will continue to be
whatever age I value,
and to do what it is
that feels right,
that feels like me,
that feels like
whatever the hell.

And then I will probably write
another Poem on the whim about
whatever the hell again,
because that is the only thing
ever worth writing about.

You dig?