A Different Neighborhood

Walk a different neighborhood
From where you do reside
And you’ll feel the deviation,
Like a widening divide.

For the stores are unfamiliar
As are all the passersby.
You’re a stranger in your city
Which your age does magnify.

For the downtown crowd is hipper
And they’re brandishing their youth,
Making everyone invisible
Who’s longer in the tooth.

Somehow when I’m on vacation
In a place I do not know,
There’s excitement being part of
All the dwellers’ ebb and flow.

But within my own environs,
In a neighboring frontier,
There are times it really feels like
I just seem to disappear.