High School Reunion Musical

Someone told me once we never grow
beyond the point we turn the age eighteen:
what insecurities we carried then
still manifest themselves throughout our lives.

That makes those speeches every June
(you know the ones that say life's just begun)
much more than naive lies, and still the truth:
depends on just how much you would believe.

I wonder if it's like the weakling boy
who overcomes his limited physique
by spending endless hours in the gym
to change the image in the mirror,
but never runs quite fast enough to flee
the sickly shadow he would leave behind.

Could be the "eighteen" theory's full of shit;
What would the world be if we never grew
beyond the high school notions that we held
to be so absolute and crystal clear?

A playground laid out on a global scale,
with territories marked in black and white,
a constant "them" and "us" dividing up
the haves from the have-nots, and so forth.

We must evolve.  I'd like to think we do,
although it often takes ten years or more
to come to terms with who we thought we were
(in contrast with what we had yet to prove).
How many of us reach the other side
with anything but memories left alive?

14 SEP 2009