Youth is an Illness that time soon cures

 

Caramel Sundae 100 x 80 x 2 cm - mixed media on canvas

 

 

 

“YOUTH IS AN ILLNESS THAT TIME SOON CURES”

 

The young are screwing everything up.

They look so damn good when they’re doing it.

Actually they have no power and are drastically feckless.

Only they don’t seem to notice, which gives the skinny jerks an edge.

 

The young are a weird arctic mirage

lacking empathy and awareness of just how precarious life is.

I try to convince them they’re gonna crash into a road block  

of failure and disappointment. And not only once. Eyes empty of exper-

 

ience glaze over. A girl who doesn’t need make-up after a night out

dancing to monotonous electronic music, reaches for her phone

with one hand, a bag of vegan chips in the other, writes

some boy she barely knows yeah okay...

 

A young guy sits down next to me. He’s not wearing anything on top. Stomach

so smooth and flat he doesn’t even need a six-pack. Doesn’t even need to

go to the gym. Why sweat for a couple of hours only to take a shower

with old dudes torturing themselves to look like me? I say to him: you’re young

 

for five minutes then someone else takes your place. Meanwhile don’t trust anyone   

over thirty. Better hope you die before you get old, etc. He’s not listening, stares at his phone.

Some girl he barely knows writes: yeah okay I’ll fuck you. Is he surprised?

Relieved? Ecstatic? Not even. Smirking, he takes a selfie, saunters off to the beach.