~

So long there good neighbor,

      My once would-be friend.

 

I’ll never see neighbor again.

 

As age-out advances

      It changes the chances

 

That neighbors can ever be friends.

 

Gone is the good day

      Where friendships will stay

 

Forever on ever on end.

 

As age-out commences

      Up!    Come the fences.

 

The idiosyncratic begins.

 

Pain and privation

      Seek separation,

 

Where each one will separately wend.

 

So long to the others,

      On becoming another.

 

Such be to suffrage of friends.

 

Farewell to the friendships

      Before they begin;

 

But those before age-out,

      May they never end!

 

When age-out,

      To hideout,

There sends.

~

 

©2014, Marvin Welborn

10 June 2014. Revised 23 June 2014.