How does it feel to be a year older
A question my father used to ask
The answer always the same
No different than yesterday

I don’t feel different than when I was 20
Sure there are little things
Bones pop and creak a lot easier now
And the stomach once made of steel in my youth
Is now made more of tissue paper
But essentially it feels the same

Except it isn’t
The world looks at me differently now
Is quick to remind me my age
Quick to let me know that the oyster of a world
Offered me in my 20’s
Is no longer mine
The fine print pointing out
This gift was more a loan
That age deems me no longer fit for
Youth no longer the currency available to me

Social media tells me
40’s are the new 20, 50’s the new 30
Except it isn’t
This society built on peddling youth
Offers it in creams, serums, dyes, pills
and denial
Willing to do anything
to hold back the hands of time

Aging all mortal enemy
A plague to be combatted
All snake skin to be discarded
Aging a set of rules never spoken
But obeyed without question
A checklist of things
Accomplished and achieved
While also a list of things no longer
Acceptable for your age group

Like purple hair, tattoos, nose rings
Certain music, dances
Dreams and hopes for the future
You be old dog says the world
New tricks are beyond you says the world
Don’t be selfish says the world
Realize your time has passed

Didn’t know I was a mountain climber
Until I was told that I had reached my peak
All downhill from here
Told my season is over
I am a tree with nothing of relevance to offer
Fruit too ripe
I am borderline spoiled

I feel like the question now has turned into
How does it feel to become invisible?
Each year more see through than the last
Treated more like commodity
I am a thing whose worth is diminishing
A program no longer valid
Obsolete

I am the ghost of my former self
Trapped on this plane of existence
This my purgatory
Punishment for getting old
Funny the desire to extend life
Yet lament each year that passes
Desperate to have the cake and eat it too
Society always Shangri-la searching and Neverland hopeful

If my father were to ask me now
How does it feel to be a year older
I would answer, aging is
A prison made of numbers
A sentence given without judge or jury
Just verdict
A twisted irony that will make inmates of us all