Pause Mandy Willis

Mandy Willis

PAUSE

The moon aligns and my blood starts to boil. The rusty engine splutters but forgets how to spark. Instead dread and anxiety ignites as I sweat, rumble and roar. Stomach swells as water relocates. Part drought, part hot lava spores. Hair sprouts, curls, turns brittle, silver streaked. Future’s possibility and promise not fecund. As time races, swirls simultaneously forward and back.

A tipping point. A defining cliche or wisdom’s kiss? An unnamed land avoided in thought and voice. As if we all decide ourselves or have a choice. Expected to just join ‘my kind’ on the side-lines rendered invisible, even blind.

Men constructed to mature like priceless wine. While we are undermined, pushed into the declining line. Can we just stay here without needing to pretend? Ignore plastic solutions, judgments about vanquishing wrinkles. Instead take pride in history’s crinkles. Or do we keep pouring money into the youthful cure?

I say stop the current pressure to all stay young. Press pause on societal fears of us aging. Changing. We can leave growing children behind, embrace our time not build a shrine. Let’s play now. Our way, MENO mosso….