It's Our Turn Next

Get ready baby boomers
Crowding Nursing homes,
Assisted Living Centers,
Retirement Villas

Old age is 
Not pretty
Naked dimpled white flesh
Wrinkled
Like a piece of driftwood
On the beach.
Exposed 
Like a large infant.

People saying I'm cute
Helping me into the store,
Suggesting a walker,
Referring me to nursing homes.

As I approach my latter days,
I remind young people
Muffling your giggles,
You're turn will come.

Cry in Private

Trying to conceal my tears

Choking unable to speak

I tell myself,

"Hide your feelings.

Hide your feelings."

They mustn't know

How worthless, unimportant

I feel.

But it doesn't matter

Who cares.

Scared

The excitement
is making my insides rumble.
Wanting to share
my thoughts  skipping
                               in my head.
What should I say?
How should I tell it?
What will they think?
My forehead sweats    and
        my fingers tremble.
I try to breathe
in and out        Rapidly
my hearts beats in rhythm
My stiffening throat hurts
       while choking 
         on my words
that I decide no to tell.

Exposed

I put my life out there
to share.
Part of me wants to shout
"Hooray! I did it!

but then
another part of me
quivers
at the thought.

My Creation

Through dreams, ambitions,

advice and affection

I have created and presented

this child to the world.

My eyes see a beautiful child

and yet I wonder if

I am deceiving myself.

On the Bookshelf

Most of my life is in that book.
I have exposed myself,
My experiences,
My relationships,
Mostly my inner feelings
My anxiety,
My remorse,
My affection and my love.

Today,
I finished my book,
Set it on the bookshelf
And walked out into
A fresh world.

Prejudice

May father's generation
learned from his father's generation
how to hate
according to race.

As a child,
I used to eat nigger babbys candy
and nigger toe nuts.
I thought of these people
as story book characters
not real people.

On the bus with my mother
at age 3
I saw a real Afro American.
"Mommy look! A nigger!"
I announced

I discovered that this lady
had feellings
which I had exposed.
I found that
I cannot hate someone
who I don't even know.

I cannot purposely hurt them.