When does middle age begin?
Every institution shows different numbers,
but perhaps the most accurate definition is
the moment when a working adult's ambition and passion
start to feel like an awkwardness
that even society finds awkward to call awkward.
Maybe it's the time when nobody says a word,
yet one alone feels burned by that temperature in the heart.
An age when being clapped for just eating and digesting
An age when being recognized just for doing what you're told
An age when being recognized just for not doing what you're not told
An age when whatever you do gets in the way
At the far edge of the jumps you can still rationally imagine,
in a state of physical and emotional powerlessness
The passion I managed to rouse again —
yet the moment I step out the door, the other person's awkward, burdened gestures and words at meeting me..
With the single population living through such years growing steadily,
material survival in daily life can be somewhat preserved,
but emotional resonance around one's very existence enters a state deeply regrettable.
