FOURTEEN AND SIXTY NINE

i am fourteen
going on seventy,
admittedly
an odd age
and a strange thing
for an adolescent boy
to live in such
a decrepit state

i am fourteen
going on seventy,
still dabbing at
wounds inflicted
fifty five long years ago,
each one a sad trophy,
a wearisome consolation

i am fourteen
going on seventy --
sixty nine and
a half, as they say --
an unresolved,
self conscious,
socially awkward boy,
lonely
and pining for love,
abandoned by the gods
of his father,
still desperate
behind the pale mask
of an old man
who should know better
but is only
a fourteen year old boy