It isn’t helpful to be called
an old soul by a man 
whose opinion matters more than any others,
when you’re just twenty-two 
and struggling beneath a load of insecurities
that are still in need of sorting and assessing
like cadaver organs at autopsy, 

to add the expectation 
of heightened perception
and be expected to walk a straight line,
to re-feed the meter.

You understand he meant well
and with the benefit of age 
his intention: to help you rise.

But, you weren’t built for lighter than air
reaching for optimistic clouds.

Your place is earthbound, under, 
among the grubs, 
the snake in the rat burrow,
the lost cat’s bones,
the nicked arrowhead,
running with the ravenous moles.