Age

Take with wisdom and dignity the counsel of the years - If your able, If you possess true courage, And real wisdom. These are not the acts of heroism and princely tales. These are not the stories of which volumes will be written To be studied in leather bound books for centuries hence. It is instead to be utterly forgotten to mediocrity, to die before death takes us. And accept it with glee.

Once the the endless burning of back pain begins, Once the weakening knees find us, Once the sleepless nights take us. Once the sheer magnitude of all of the shattered dreams, the cruel monotony of what we have become, the reality of all of our failures and shortcomings, truly settle. Then, just maybe, we can understand all those silly clichés and adages rang true all along.

Power is a vacant party clown, My body nothing more than a backhanded wasteland, My mind a petty, tattered wedding gown, frail in deed, no more than an impotent superhero. Unable to stand Unwilling to risk what little we still have, weak in both spirit and flesh, Broken by a steady onslaught of tiny defeats and minor disappointments.

Our Ancestors grieve they curse they pray and they rage, and, in the end, the truly wise even laugh with the joy of utter defeat.

And with the steady march of time, we inevitably join them in their temples of cold reality, Monuments to what might of been And to what truly was In all of it’s forgettable, mediocre glory.