Best Years of My Life

Sometimes I look over all my life’s years and can’t tell when the best started.

I am 4, my earliest year of memory. I befriend my first non-human earthling, for he’s family—and I remember, for he’s every man’s best.

I am 18. No year is better. I meet the creature that makes me love creatures. She’ll never love me. I couldn’t care less.

I am 25, the best year of my life. I varnish my vessel with life’s most valued and know Earth knows I chose right. Animalian ink.

I am 26. I think to call this the best year of my life. I’m chaste of taste and free of flesh; my soul is ne’ermore a graveyard. Or so I think.

I am 27, and this may be the best year of my life. I’m proved a fool. My wool is pulled. I wake up from my Matrix. From specieism.

I am 28. It seems to be the best year of my life. I find my voice for those I’d muted and see those I’d ne’er seen. My victims.

I am 29, and this is the best year of my life. I visit a long-sought place—a factory farm—and embrace those friends who braved it. My idols.

I am 30, and it is, by very far, the new best year of the long, many years of my life. I finally live within wide, shared walls of those who hold most my ethic. Justice.

Still, next year will be the best yet.