When

I was sitting in my living room one night
twisting a pixie stick between my fingers,
contemplating the brightly colored sugar
inside the striped paper straw.
The television mumbled nonsense
as I ignored it and instead watched
the blue powder spill into my hand
like the grains of an hour glass.
I thought about how long it had been
since I'd last consumed one of those
fairy candy straws, and it had been a while.
Not since the last time I'd donned
a quirky costume and paraded through
the streets had I had such a sugary treat.
It got me thinking about how
I don't go to McDonalds anymore,
because the food just doesn't taste
the same as when I was seven and demanded
a happy meal, with the latest cool toy.
I thought about how I can't eat
Spaghetti-O's anymore because they
taste like cardboard life rafts floating
in a watery sea of weak tomato soup.
I remembered the conversation I had
with my friend about the cartoons
we watched when we were small
and how kids these days don't know
what they have and what they were missing.
And I wondered how it was that I'd
grown so old, when I was still so young
and had promised to never grow up at all.
But then I reminded myself that age
is all a state of mind as I happily licked
the blue sugar out of the palm of my hand
and laughed at the thought of my blue tongue.

October 24, 2002