I Knew You
Then
© 2019 by P Michael Biggs
You look at me and I look back.
That hair, those dark glasses,
wearing a once-favored coat.
I remember when that came along.
It had two pairs of pants,
and a wool tie,
and you thought you were
pretty cool and looked smart.
I laugh because of what I now know
and what I didn’t know back then.
I laugh at the mistakes you are
yet to make,
the attempts at life
you are going to want.
Wish I could sit with you
for a spell.
We would talk about your
important future
and maybe some pitfalls
to be avoided.
Oh my, how young you were back then.
You had fits and spurts of
goals and dreams,
and they were mixed with
angst and self-doubt.
You believed, and yet you doubted.
You had ideas that you just
couldn’t quite put into play.
At times, you were bold as a lion,
and then again, you were timid
and afraid of your own shadow.
If you would have known then
what I know now,
would that really have benefited you?
I think not, for life seems to dictate
that we each learn our own lessons,
we each go to Hard Knocks Academy,
and sometimes that lasts well beyond
eighteen or so years.
Oh yes, I look at your picture,
Phillip Michael Biggs,
as a young and some say “handsome”
18 or 19-year-old.
Handsome.
I never could embrace that one.
My inner voice wouldn’t let me go there.
I had to grow into whatever
Mother Nature gave me,
and let it happen.
In time, I accepted ME.
In time, I came to
approve of myself.
That’s the great lesson
I would want to give you today.
You are a unique entity,
a person of enormous possibilities.
Embrace the unique and wonderful YOU.
You can do so much, you have so much
that is just waiting to be let out.
Embrace you.
Believe in you.
You’ve only just begun.
Even now, at my age,
I’m still beginning.
Originals by P Michael Biggs
