Getting Older

Watch me as I melt . . .

Have you noticed words you say

Mean something different today?

Then what they meant so long ago

When you were young and days went slow.

There are a few that fit, I think,

Like ‘gay’ and ‘pot’ and ‘spam’ and ‘shrink’.

But one I’ve kept throughout my life

As daughter, sister, mother, wife.

The word is ‘hot’, I’m here to say

And has been used most every day.

When I was four, it simply meant

I was too warm, my vigour spent.

Then teen-aged years crept up on me

And ‘hot’ meant something else, you see.

T’was what we all aspired to,

When hanging round the kids we knew.

But now I’m old, my hair is grey

And ‘hot’ is with me every day.

In seasons cold, and seasons warm,

Somehow the word has lost all charm.

‘Cause now it’s simply how I feel

When’er my world begins to reel.

The slightest stress, the merest strain

My temp is through the roof again.

So know, if you should hear me speak,

And perspiration starts to streak,

That being sexy’s mostly not

What’s meant when’er I say “I’m hot!”