Katrina Kaye

We build caves in the snow
to heal feelings of self destruction

in an effort to forget
our distaste for the world.

Are those still your baby teeth?
because, by now, we should be used
to the taste of meat.
We’re a little old to be pacified.

Yet we still pout lower lip,
dress in animal ears,
and cross arms in defiance.

Let’s play together.
Forget for a moment
the aches in our knees
and the thin skin of our hands.

Let’s rock on boats with broken boughs
and pretend it doesn’t matter where we drift.

Stay under.
Ignore the need for renewed breath.
I’ve been climbing mountains longer than you,

but you,
you know how to hold your fire underwater,
make rain out of nothing at all,
weave me in the dark,
breathe under floorboards.

It takes only a look escaping cracked eyes,
a word passing long tooth,
a head resting to exhausted breast,
to remind me,
after all this time,
you are still on my side.

“Too Old” is previously published in The Fall of a Sparrow (2014) by Swimming with Elephants Publications and ConnotationPress.com.