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Remember when you were a little kid

The one thing that every grown-up did

Would ask you ‘fore ten minutes were up

What you wanna be when you grow up?

Those were the days in the old school yard

Laughing and running, playing so hard.

My cousin was the Swamp Fox; his friends, his men

I was Clara Barton, and healed them again and again

Then the bell would ring and we’d go in

To study reading, ‘rithmatic and spelling

I’d draw pictures in the margins of my sums

And write poetry when my spelling was done.

Oh, I don’t wanna grow up.

Cause when you play war games for real

There’s way too many will never heal;

Flowers on a spreadsheet; your boss will scream,

Grants in tetrameter are nobody’s dream.

I don’t want decisions of life and death

I hate even giving children an “F”.

There’s no reset button on life so real;

Growing up is a real bum deal.

I don’t wanna grow up.

Each time we eat, we feed on death,

Time for yourself becomes a theft.

The face in the coffin is a final good-bye

There’s no second life when you really die.

Give me my cats and my poetry

My music, my pictures and a dog or three

Let me live behind my wall of books.

I know what’s out there, don’t make me look.

Cause I don’t wanna grow up.