Birthday Poem

[catelin]

I am forty-three today. Holy shit. ; )



An Older Woman

I am not that girl.

I tell you this and what I mean is that
I am not 36 and I don’t stay up late much anymore,
I only wake up at four a.m. for no apparent reason.
What I mean is that the last joint I smoked is now old enough to vote.

I am not that girl.

I tell you this and I mean that I am wise
Enough now to see the value in being patient with you,
Even you, with all your flaws and fears and troubles.
What I mean is that I understand the terrible ache for things we can count on.

I am not that girl.

I tell you this and I mean that I am faithful,
To myself and to the truth as it reveals itself to me over time,
I have shed the need to proclaim my purpose so loudly.
What I mean is that I grow more quietly subversive and fierce each day.

I am not that girl.

I tell you this and I mean I may have been her
Or a variation on that same theme of false bravado and fuck off,
Sometime before I learned to be rather than to appear.
What I mean is that I am already what you can only hope she might become.

Comments

[dabroots.livejournal.com]

I met Allen Ginsberg on my 39th birthday. He was signing books at a store in Princeton NJ where I was one of the managers. He heard it was my birthday, wished me a happy one, and I told him I was feeling old. He assured me that I wasn't old, and proceeded to put a really nice inscription and drawing inside my copy of Cosmopolitan Greetings.

[catelin.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful story! Thank you for sharing it with me.