They say a birthday should leave you wiser,
more learned, more intelligent,

and I’m twenty now, finally wise enough
to care more for truth than fake appearance,

fully twenty now,
but still not learned

enough to understand the words
to Christmas carols

like jingle bells, and here we go a-
singing songs that people don’t get.

I exercised my wisdom by acknowledging
my need to gain knowledge

and looked the songs’
vocabulary up.

Now I know what upsot, lank,
and a-wassailing all mean.

…I still feel just like me.

Perhaps it’s because I still am baffled
by bob tails and miss fanny bright,

or perhaps it’s because these things don’t even
matter in the first place.

I’m only twenty now,
so I’m not entirely sure.