At 21
There is a fire fixed in my blood
and as expected it burns wildly –

There are probably hours out there
of myself
lost to the chance of finding
whatever it is I am looking for

At 21
I am much older than this face in the mirror
but not wise enough to know what moves me

Streching time and space to project my mind further
I try to retrieve pieces of the underlying structure -
fragment images of a life I have never been brave enough
to live without you

At 21
I have given much attention to material things
to only decorate a place I will never call my home

Six years of growing together
There is a lot of fear in loosing it all -
Watching the friends we have made together
make choices and voices behind uncommon walls between us -
Feeling for the first time
a complete silence and vacancy in the rooms you built in my heart
and half a couch, desk, and sense of decency to fill them

At 21
I have become someone else’s sense of self
When I don’t even have my own

There will be loss and gain but I hope that this doesn’t
have you loose your faith in love and reverse your giving nature,
or turn you toward your addictions to escape, the ones I helped you from -
Because I wont be your reason to loose track of the faces that you love

At 21
I have castrated myself with promises
And now lay on a bed of apologizes

I can’t try to control you like your father did
probably any better than you tried to be my mother –
and I didn’t move out of that house to live with her incarnate,
but now I know why those older men called their elderly wives “mum”
and why I always cringed at the toes

At 21
There is a lot of time for looking for
But no way to go back

07/06/2004

Author's Note: trying times, big choices, and roads I cant see an end to.
the form of the poem is experimental for me - and I hope it doesnt take away from the message... some revising may come tomorrow.

Posted on 07/06/2004
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