Silly Emotional Teenagers

They think their vernacular is spectacular,
that the latest trend will have no end
that their hairstyles are smiled upon by crocodiles.
They distribute a flower every hour
professing a love’s fire which will never expire,
sticking awkwardly-shaped noses into grocery-store roses,
pressing two painted lips to the petals of periwinkle tulips,
communicating wanton agitations by way of carnations,
and in the reelings of their putrid, pubescent feelings
they think they alone hold the answer to war, poverty, cancer,
and that the solutions to all spiritual pollutions
reside in the ever-pumping blood of their ever-thumping hearts.
Ha! As if all it took to fathom the deep deep night was a spasm!
Oh, I suppose their peculiar customs are a bit endearing
and as no alternative to adolescence seems to be appearing,
let them live on with their gossip-telling and flower-smelling.
And anyway, who am I to dispense judgments, really?
Perhaps I am the one who is actually silly.
Though calm and measured I’m often appearing,
here now I sit, middle-aged, with sock and mud, smearing, smearing.