I Had to Get Old to Become Young
Too soon old but it is finally good to be young again
I was old long
before I was young
Born old maybe,
or beaten into old age
at 10 by a drunken
stepfather who believed
childhood is a waste
of children who should
be paying rent to him.
He left, but the feeling
of never being good enough
embedded in my brain,
a scar from the only
man in my life, one who
hated me for not
being his.
I dressed old, smelled old,
wore old man cologne, Old
Spice, when I was 17,
pretended to be the man
it would take me another
20 years to find… I wanted
old, because being a man
meant I didn’t have to stay
the insecure child who grew
up poor, didn’t know how
to dress, didn’t know how
to eat at a table with adults,
the manners of a feral dog
sloping food out
of a big red bowl.