Live It Again

I want to be seventeen again not twenty two,
I want to sleep between eye-blinks, missing
the essence of nothing with that moves
in my spirit. I want the freedom of unfettered
wings, the glory of endless motion, the taste
of unblunted aspirings. I want those things
madly, I feel them clamouring in my heart
to be free. I want to be seventeen again
and to have you there with me.

I want to be twenty two with the choices
unchecked, facing that sort of organised future
bought by years of organic study, assured of
a circumspect foot in a career leading to
greater glory somewhere. I want to be there
confronting the same conclusion which left no
choice, aware life is too short to waste. I want
to make the choice I didn’t make, to take you
with me, to break away and to run free.

I want to be thirty two with my son watching
me, quizzically, questioning whether he should
see the disreputable, hung-over wreck with his
head in his hands – despairing his wasted youth.
I want to be thirty two again and to tell him
the truth. I want to be there for him in his young
life, with a wife to live for, to love, and a vision
of the future torn out of a blind past to guide
me where I turned off the path.

I don’t want to grow old anymore, I want to
relive parts of my life, to dwell longer where
time serves my memory best, salvage what’s left,
rebuild a fragmented passage of time that’s not
mine to have but to wish for, and wishing would
rest easier than being uselessly penitent to feelings
of waste. Long ago I lived that life in great haste,
I’d like to slow down a ways and notice the view,
to live it again with the closeness of you.
© I.D. Carswell