it is raining
and i'm a grown-up,
somehow, my age
divisible by three
i keep identifying,
in my consciousness,
as the next number up,
prime, a mid-decade
becoming "late," rounding
out the last slew of digits
considered "young"
40 looms in the distance
and is the new 28 (though
Goddxss please spare us
the saturn return) i remember
when my elementary school
principal celebrated that birthday,
there were "Over the Hill" banners
everywhere, symbolic of decline.
on the other hand, my twin
brother, also currently 36,
tells our mother he's enjoy
what's been deemed a
"second youth" when she
names the stage "middle age"
i think the reason 37 haunts
and insinuates, two years into
our lifetime's plague, is the
returned pressure of
accomplishment dichotomy
the ardor and voracious
production of my late 20s,
early 30s slowed, obscured,
less visible in part because
i worked (ironic) to heal
the capitalist impulse to
always prove worthiness
of being (as i plea, now,
for my father's retirement)
then there was a book,
a national tour, international
collaborations, and it all
happened fast, back-to-back,
i thought if i stopped i'd
never start again, i'd lose
it all, meaning my reputation,
meaning my sense of safety,
meaning my right to live.
since then i left the person
i planned to have children with,
since then i grew into a new gender.
since then i reckoned with
ancestral wrongs and committed
to lifelong lineage healing
since then a pandemic swept
me from my home, and i left
my city of many years
since then i separated from
one of my life partners
her hand-writing lingering on
the boxes i've yet to unpack.
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