YOUTH

Oh God.

She is....

She is twelve years younger than I am.

She is a babe in the woods.

She is a baby on this planet.

She is a child before me

innocent in ways

I am jaded.

She is inexperienced

in things I have forgotten.

I am a full adolescent older

than she (I developed early)

and

I cannot believe

that this youth

this sweet, barely-ripened thing

can see anything

in me.