Reflections of a 5th Grade Nothing

Words reel in carefully
Afraid too much—speed, force, time—
Will break the line.
Looking back on the lasting
The last thing
The memories
All you’ve worried about—
The questionable tastes, the made-up rebellions—
All has ended well.
The sheer shock of normality
Wakes the sleeping, spell casts the breathing.
They’re all okay now.
They’ve got it together.
Hair receding, lines forging their way,
Crinkling into tinkered skin slowly—
Another five and the landscape will hardly look the same.
But there is always something familiar.
A glint not as aged,
The way the light hangs,
Wavers—falls—
It will take you back
Words pasted together, images stuck shut
Conglomerations are rudimentary
Simplistic notions lay down
The law of all to come after.
What shapes the masses
Coming forth unmarked
Then molded, changing, cracking,
Withering away—
Increasingly obstinate yet
Ever transforming.
Shadows of statues
Intermingling and coping
We’re seen as this:
The teachers were wrong
They got it backwards…
Or maybe it’s just me.
Maybe they knew all along
The truth of age,
Of days—of balloons in one breath
And death in the next.