How Old Am I

How lovely

Would it be

To embody

A graceful

Unguessable age

Although

If you're between

20-400 years alive

I will guess wrong

And offend you

When I was kid

We had a Betamax

We watched new movies

Videos bootlegged

By a drunk dude

Who left in view

The top of his red

Converse sneaker

Resting on the back

Of the small seat

In front of him

Always visible

In the bottom

Right hand corner

Of the television

I spent more time

Watching his foot

Than the vertigo

Inducing films

He provided

When not viewing

Stolen movies

We played Atari

Until it ended

In a bloody

Battling fist fight

In high school

My hair refused

To be big and fluffy

Despite perms

Layers of hair spray

And the will

To fit in

By lunch

My hair

Would be as

Flat as paper

At this point

I'm not sure

What's under

All the color

Applied monthly

To my head

My first tattoo

On my wrist

A symbolic gesture

To honor a life

That ended at

Their own hands

Friends aged 23 - 68

Gathered with

Burly male artists

Saturated in ink

And more feminine

Than the girls

Getting tattooed

At my dads 75th party

A week later

I announced my body art

My mother was horrified

Unusually speechless

My father licked his thumb

An attempt to wash it off

I pulled quickly away as

That's grossly unsanitary

We watched as my father

Quickly change channels

On his 72 inch flat screen

Commenting, as he does

On any dead actors that showed up

And how they died