I sometimes wish I were old.
Just to know that everything went okay.
Just to look back with a sane smile at the hard times,
To know the answers to the doubts that gorged on my wonder and made my fingernails bleed,
To see the silver and copper trail of a carefully built path laid behind me, and feel unafraid.

I sometimes wish I were old.
To finally see that I did just as well as my parents,
To realize that its really not such a big deal after all,
That change creeps up on you without you noticing its etches on your ways,
To see with wisdom just how far I have come.

I sometimes wish I were old,
To enjoy basking in those memories,
The warm copper ones as well as the cold silver blue,
And enjoy them because of how much they cost me,
How much I thought I knew.

I think I'd have a party.
Or at least a solitary drink in my honor.
I would take a few minutes to get lost in those thoughts,
and who knows even remember writing this poem.

And for sure I'd shudder at the thought of its weakness,
and at how I cool I thought I was,
And how I completely misimagined it.
And how age isn't silver at all.

I can't be certain when it happened.
The day the moment or the year.
I suppose in the end it doesn't really matter
The outcome will inevitably be the same

I wish I could somehow go back and change the script
erase a few lines here, cross out a chapter or two there
redefine my story
Streamline it to be just how I imagined

I always admired it when I saw it
that way it has of turning a person into brightness
the light you just can't help but notice
As if a thousand stars are twinkling relentlessly just beneath their skin

I swear I had it too
one moment I could feel the steady pull of it pulsing through my limbs
burning me on the inside

you know the kind of heat I mean
the kind that walks that fine line between pain and pleasure
like you're staring into fire that you can't help be mesmerized by..
still knowing that at any moment you could turn your hand
to the cheerful crackling and feel the deceit as it bleeds angrily into your skin.


It burns in that satisfying way of a just healing sunburn across your shoulders
tender and raw enough that you can feel every ounce of your vulnerability
But you can also feel your resiliency. your ability to heal
And it reminds you of how the torched sand felt beneath your shoulders
And all you can see is the sun on the back of your eyelids
like a desert of fire the stretches the span of a lifetime
And suddenly it doesn't seem so bad

It's not important what it came from
back when it was this fragile, breakable thing
What's important is the twisty sinister path it took to get there

It could have been my naivety
my refusal to acknowledge as my vulnerability turned so eerily into a condescension that dripped like honey from an equally naive paw

But here's the thing, our lives are only a series of moments.  
One moment, or a thousand, that have the potential to change your life, if you let it.
Flashbulbs exploding constantly. Light so dazzling that if we took the time to stop and examine the endless possibilities within each one, we'd almost certainly be blinded.
The problem is that each moment is so easily forgotten or misimagined.
Neatly packaged away  and efficiently lost in the trenches of time.

Like I said.
I don't know when it happened
The day the moment or the year
but I know what it felt like
and I know it's worth it.