A Sonnet to Myself on my Twentieth Birthday

A reminder to myself that its okay to bad at poetry.

I am too young my feet are not of stone

the dirt may mount my corpse before my mind.

Unformed, my borrowed spine a minor bone,

I am but to my life ’til now confined.

Each word an obstacle to no man’s eye

So move then, child, before the plaster sets

and read now - Plath, Whitman, Shelley, Li Bai.

I am not ready for the page quite yet.

If I can keep my head instead of friends

And harness the tiger more than the parrot

Two decades gone to waste if not portend

Go move now, child, and use what you inherit.

Still turn and breathe and know that time is plenty

Enjoy, young man, you are still only twenty.

Reviews

[Carolynn]

What an incredible poem of making use of youth while you have it! If only I could be 20 again... But then again.... Why?