seriously i feel like i'm totally getting old, old, old. older than my age. older than my mama's age. old like i'm never gonna be happy ever again. old like there's no more tomorrow, no more sunrise, no more promises and cliffhangers and cliffnotes to cheat with. old like there's no horizons yet to chase. old like there's no hope left. old like there's no help to call. old like there's no sunshine. old like there's no starry nights. old like curry-lacking fried noodles. old like a bell-less church steeple, like a chime-less front porch. old like split-level cacophony. old like memory. old like no chance. old like retribution. old like there's no labrinthine garden mazes to figure. old like there's no spring. old like there's no soft drizzle of rain. old like there's no traffic to curse, no highways to chase, no mountains to mock. old like there's no giant steel monsters to taunt. old like there's no sea of paper to tear. old like there's no more journeys left to traverse. old like there's no more puzzles left to unlock. old like a bunch of rusted keys resting near a door that will not open. old like i'm standing outside that door. old like hearing reggae jams beyond the door, old like trying out rusted keys, knocks, feeling brittle knuckles and shoulders break for ramming them into the door. old like standing over a cliffside, spreading my arms, and refusing to jump. old like the spotlight's passed me and turned to someone i can never, never again become. old, old. old like wasted. old like exhausted. old like disenchanted. old like flapping in the wind. old like a one-way conversation, an unachievable solution, an unforgivable situation. old like negotiated. old like compromised. old like wilted. old, like i've clipped my long tresses, leaving my waist and my back and my spine and my shoulders and my nape and my ears at the mercy of the wind. old, like i resolve to share my life with you and i've forgotten selfishness - how you're MINE, you're MINE, you're MINE, and i've forgotten yelling and stamping and pouting. it is a worse feeling to behold an anxious, instensely disliked object: i feel like i'm getting old. when i'm not there yet.  ¶ 10/26/2005 10:55:00 PM