i've become old...

i can tell by

1) the seasons, growing shorter

trees these days seem to be in such a hurry to
shake their leaves off

2) the growing number of people that are gone

by the time you come back with tea and
madeleines

...

wherever the days went
that's where they took my friends, too

they've all gone in search for
Bigger & Better
(although i can't imagine what could be
Better than my tea)  

they've all gone in light of
promises

"she promised to live with me..."

"i promised myself that one day..."

"the future is promising..."

"more promising than here..."

me,
i stopped believing in these promises
last Sunday when i overheard the neighborhood tarot
sobbing in the Confession booth:

"Father, that's when I realized that
the only promise in this world
is the present"

...

i find promise in
smaller promises,
such as

1) a good chance of rain this afternoon

2) your alarm has been set to 7 AM

3) see you tomorrow

...

people don't remember what they ate for breakfast,
while they remember the life they have yet to live
and so
i stopped remembering

...

i only hope that when tomorrow comes the
view outside my window will not change
and what that view means to me
will not change, as well

the city will still light up all the night with its strange fire
and the people will still be in love with powerwalking

...

in truth
i live in this state of constant fear:
when i turn away, the city will cease
(like dream machines)

if i blink too hard,
this all might just become a line
from some book i think
i read sometime in
grade school
(which name i can't recall)

if i were to move away
would it all wait for me?

do i really love this?

or am i just afraid of losing it?

and while i wonder,
i don't dare take my eyes off of
the view outside my window

...

you say that life is loving and leaving
again and again,

then i'm not interested in life

what's so beautiful about broken hearts?

...

if happiness for me
is 2nd paragraph on page 149,
let me be an inkblot
in time, forever still