Between today and tomorrow
I will have drawn crow's feet into my
Eyes, lines of age carved from
My dusted thoughts. Fly away,

They tell me. Let the black feathers
Take flight from my face, wisdom
That nests against the curve of my cheeks,
That inhabit the nights between my darks
And my whites.

I feel old.
Ten thousand years between the fractures
In my spine, the gaps between my vertebrae,
My emptied mind. Stuffed in the creases
You would find sine, cosine, nothing of
Mine. Spare me from nine to five,
From three fair meals
And from “Oh, you'll be fine.”

I am too young,
Seventeen,
To feel history crack the calluses
Of my palms.
Too young,
But centuries old,
And feeling nothing but the veins
Of time.