always 17

i took pride in my strangeness
lost
in days that seemed jeweled and mysterious
pierced
with wonderings
(passions)
aching loneliness
this
was my muse
I
bowed
in humbled gratitude
my
name
my
scar
the symbol of
who I wasn't
erased
(banished)
from the impermanent world
enjoined
from the mouths of those around me
the
keepers
protectors
creators of
the emerging me
left
to
drift
(drown)
in the fleeting exigencies
of fickled youth
while
I
sit
wrapped in the passing light
of seventeen