arrogance of youth

look away

look away

when confronted with someone old &

pick the age at which someone becomes

unworthy of the same

cultural pulse

in which you find yourself beating,

for here in america,

the old are thrown to the side &

left to fend for themselves

without an adequate safety net &

without an adequate amount of

respect---

what can be found is a vast menagerie of

airbrushed imagery

plaguing the covers of every magazine &

filling all the children avec

wide eyes focused on the

net,

with the sense that what matters is money

because money can make you beautiful &

if you are beautiful you will be loved &

if you are loved, you’ll age slowly &

if you age slowly, you will never become that

“wrinkled, ugly, useless thing”

which the idolized american culture deems

irrelevant---

how funny it is to think that for such a short time,

the bumbling chutzpah of youth

can overcome even the tiniest of flaws &

yet when the youth begins to flush down the

toilet,

the flaws are still there

glaring one in the face,

with nothing but time to make them stronger &

more pungent to the smell & feeling,

like the more powerful of snobby cheeses---

yes,

young america,

you will age & die

just like the rest of us &

old america,

you are going to get there quicker,

whether you like it or not---

seems that beginning to look all ages in the eye &

remembering just how irrelevant we all are,

how much evolution has no need for the lot of us &

how quickly our lives will all cease,

might bring a bit more kindness into the world &

start a reevaluation of what priorities need to be in our

heads.