stranger in your own land

as so

many of your peers

slip

into the great sea,

you look

around the stores

while shopping,

while driving in your car,

at the bank,

at the DMV

how few of you are left.

everyone

is younger.

you've become a stranger

in your own land.

how swiftly

the world has changed

and never

going back to how it was

when you

were young.

simpler times?

perhaps.

more common sense,

more civility,

more family?

maybe.

or maybe it was all a mirage,

imagined

and discolored

through the prism 

of looking back.