By Justin Karcher
How to Feel Much Younger Than Your Age
We’re lying in the dewy grass of Shakespeare Hill
eating Chocolate Teddy Grahams and waiting for the sun
to set on today’s grievances: long work week, friends
you never see anymore, that nagging feeling that there’s
something else we should be doing with our lives
but it all fades away when the play starts, lights up
on a surf shop in a beach town plucked straight
from our dreams where we still keep the spirit of youth
alive in everyone, where we’re all full of Queen Mab energy
dancing to the music of our favorite local bands who never
broke up, who live forever through the airwaves, a pair
of star-crossed lovers right in the middle of it all and of course
it doesn’t end well for them but that’s really not the point
of their story, it’s how we tell it, a fresh vision recalibrating
those old emotions, just a little reminder that growing up is a frenzy
you get lost in it, so always remember the compass of your heart
you either figure everything else out or you don’t, and as night
settles in and the actors leave the stage, we’re walking to our car
on Windsor and see a group of teenagers staring at a parking ticket
on their windshield because they were too close to a fire hydrant
everyone’s freaking out except for the driver who simply says
“It’s only $40” and just like that, they’re beating back the world
fairies flying alongside them toward an ocean of their own creation
