health

At this young, ripe age, I couldn't help but to think that my body is invincible. My concept of "illness" would fall within the confines of the common cold or the upset stomach that could easily be cured with a magical pill of Advil or Pepto.

But after this weekend, I realized that anyone (regardless of age, gender, or physical upkeep) can fall into the doomed hands of disease. Just one arbitrary day, your body (which you considered as "your own") can turn into a merciless enemy, something separate and counteractive to your being.

There is so much to be prayed for.

Billy Collins knows how to capture my thoughts so perfectly.

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel

like I'm coming down with something,

something worse than any stomach ache

or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--

a kind of measles of the spirit,

a mumps of the psyche,

a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.



You tell me it is too early to be looking back,

but that is because you have forgotten

the perfect simplicity of being one

and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.

But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.

At four I was an Arabian wizard.

I could make myself invisible

by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.

At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.



But now I am mostly at the window

watching the late afternoon light.

Back then it never fell so solemnly

against the side of my tree house,

and my bicycle never leaned against the garage

as it does today,

all the dark blue speed drained out of it.



This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,

as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.

It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,

time to turn the first big number.



It seems only yesterday I used to believe

there was nothing under my skin but light.

If you cut me I could shine.

But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,

I skin my knees. I bleed.



     -- Billy Collins