Sixty.

What the hell is sixty?

Literally an age uncomtemplated

And yet it’s here.

Sixty

No more young adult innocence

Or being middle-aged crisis worthy

You’re now in ‘keep scrolling down for your birth year’ zone

Sixty

The brain remains the same

Yet the shell shows signs of system failure

Aches & pains, temporary in the past, set up shop like squatters

Sixty

Six decades of striving and building

Next decades about contemplation and reflection

Did you do what you said you’d do, and can you still do?

Sixty

An age when people tell you that you don’t look a day over

An age when people silently look and hope they look better than

An age when you lose track of what is young and what is old

Sixty

Surrounded by the shadows of friends now gone

You watch videos about the enormity of the universe

And cute videos of Rottweiler pups…high as fuck…cause YOLO

Sixty

Where you’re proud of who you are

What you’ve become

And how people see you

Sixty

You walk out into the world, sexy as fucking ever

The gray complements the crevices that crept in last night

You turn heads because of, in spite of, nowhere to be seen

Sixty

Born during LBJ

Child through odd numbered plates for gas

College through trickled down

Married during the blue dress

Kid born with hanging chads

Grinded during Iraq, Afghan, and White House Black Man

Surviving American mediocrity in power

Sixty

Husband, who takes that shit seriously

Father, who takes that shit seriously

Black man who takes that shit seriously

Sixty

That Denny’s special doesn’t sound too bad

Lemme take my statin and pressure pills first

Can’t eat too much, as indigestion comes from breathing

Sixty

Wait, I still have something to say

Even as society gives hints to move along

I’m still gonna say it.

Sixty

I’ll grow into it.

I’ll learn from it

I’ll excel in it.

Sixty

It’s here

I’m here

See you at 75