My friend Agi is 31.
She says love is like a riot in your head.
And that when you are young you run with the riot,
Mad and crazy through the streets of your soul,
Crashing and trashing the very fibre of your being.
Tearing up the pavement of your life
And hurling the pieces through the windows of your mind
Into chaos, chaos, chaos.

She says when you are older
You are calm
And rational.
And you don’t get trashed.

I am 55.
Now I see the riot coming.
I smell the sedition, the scent of man at fifty paces.
I get the batons out.
I build barricades when unrest murmurs in the distance,
Round dark corners
And in unlit streets. 
I call for water canons, negotiators and brokers of peace.
Maybe even the UN if I can find the number in the book.

I am calm.
I am rational.
I stand smugly on my balcony
Watching the city burn in the amber dusk.
I don’t get trashed.

I turn to the peace of my apartment

And  I freeze
At the sight
Of the man
With the gun.

                                                                                                                                                      Gaia Charis.  04/09.