Unready, After All These Years (Poetry)

The day arrived to cast off childish things,
to jettison sweet fairytales, spoonfed,
to bite the bullet’s nasty flavourings —
and taste the way things really are instead.

Our brave new world’s less lovely than we dreamed
and adulthood’s a land of constant change —
alarming and more dangerous than it seemed
from nursery windows censoring the strange,

where, biding time, we made fantastic plans...
Too soon the hour came, the threshold yawned,
we held our fragile faith in trusting hands
and ventured forth, fresh converts Time has spawned.

At once, the veil was lifted, rent in twain —
Reality stood naked, undisguised
as jeering voices ridiculed, made plain
their cynicism, crushing, worldly-wise.

We’re still unready, ill-prepared, naive
and floundering in no-man’s-land between
lost adolescence and that age believed
will throw the switch — transform us at eighteen.

But nothing happened — like a trick that failed
there is no magic nor eventual cure
to free us — the slow rule of flesh prevails
and traps the mind perversely immature.