Until I’m Old

I want to live until I’m old,
Neckline resting high past my collar,
Having learned and unlearned the value of a dollar
The scream of time is now a far away holler

I want to live until I’m old
My skin will be a treasure map 
Only me and the pirates can read
Till the seeds I’ve sewn have turned into trees
and they once again make paper from reeds

I want to live until I’m old
Sitting deep and settled in my chair
Eyelids hang holy and devout to the air
All my burdens just heavy enough to bare
Seeing a door and still wondering who put that there

I want to live until I’m old
The silver shafts of my hair have 
convinced the others to soften
And the spring of my life is blanketed,
Protected in a winter frost.
I wanna live till the old violins sing new music.

I used to want to die young,
After all I had to say came to sound the same
But now I want to live to listen,
And have my hairs stand on end
Straining to see a scene they haven’t seen 
In a long, long time.

Kay is a composer of stories, songs and screenplays. This Los Angeles copywriter is a renaissance woman, classically trained with a cosmopolitan focus. She is a lifelong scrapbooker and has a knack for rendering images on an Etch-a-sketch.