Twenty Years Ago Today

Twenty years ago today.

Twenty years ago today you saw the outside
world for the first time.Twenty years ago
today you saw your mother and father’s faces
for the first time.

Twenty years ago today, you began
a life full of sorrow and happiness.

Twenty years ago today you began to hear
something other than muffled sounds and
the sound of your mother’s heartbeat. You
heard yourself cry for the first time
...you heard others cry too.

You heard electronic devices and doors
opening and closing and a lot of voices,
some melodic, others harsh and ugly.

You have lost and found so much since that day,
but do no feel much smarter or wiser than you did then.
You feel absolutely childlike, Absolutely childlike,
naive without experience.

But ironically, you are completely ready to handle any
success or failure the future will bring. Both of
which you’ve been avoiding like death itself

No more false expectations. No more lying to yourself.
No more waiting for life to begin. No more waiting
for things to be perfect, you know they never will be.

...you know they never will be.

© Ithaka Darin Pappas © 1986

"Twenty Years Ago Today"

From the album:
So Get Up & The Lost Acapellas
[Sweatlodge Records]