What She Said

I learned a lot, working with high-school-age people for a month and a half, and remembered some of what it was like, being 15 or 16.  That's probably why when I read the new volume of poetry by Billy Collins--Horoscopes For the Dead--this poem stuck out, for me:

What She Said

When he told me he expected me to pay for dinner,
I was like give me a break.

I was not the exact equivalent of give me a break.
I was just similar to give me a break.

As I said, I was like give me a break.

I would love to tell you
how I was able to resemble give me a break
without actually being identical to give me a break,

but all I can say is that I sensed
a similarity between me and give me a break.

And that was close enough
at that point in the evening

even if it meant I would fall short
of standing up from the table and screaming
give me a break,

for God's sake will you please give me a break?!

No, for that moment
with the rain streaking the restaurant windows
and the waiter approaching,

I felt the most I could be was like

to a certain degree

give me a break.

This poem's speaker and I are, you know, like, aging!  And this is the kind of thinking that can go on inside an aging person's head when she hears a fragment from a 15-year-old girl's conversation.  It's not useful.  It's certainly no more pretty than the original phrase.  And yet it circles around and around in there.

One of the things I notice about the difference between people who age gracefully and are still interesting to talk to, and people who become curmudgeonly and boring is that the first type stay open to new experiences and ways of saying things.  They sometimes listen to music they know they might not like, and they occasionally read books that aren't exactly suited to their tastes. They continue to grow intellectually.  I want to, like, know what younger people are saying, if only to make fun of it, in the manner of this poem.  What about you?