I've not become bolder
with age,
but so much more afraid.
I don't miss being young
not really,
I miss having options before me.
We both know what most of
our days
will be between now and the grave
and for some reason we pretend
to ourselves
and to the world that it's okay.

It is not okay. It just isn't.

But there, as the bard would say,
is the rub.
One days have become coulda beens
and the ******* tomorrows are
no longer endless
but corralled into a very small pen.
I don't use a rearview anymore
looking back hurts.
The world's changing again.
How many more times in just
my single lifetime
will we leave people behind?

I'm so sick of playing games.

Games that last a lifetime and that
nobody ever even wins.
Games that count out our lives in
color coded swaths of angry nonsense
like daytime television refugees
until we've bitten our nails all the way
down to the quick
and have nothing but quitting smoking
to hold above the marquee with
any kind of pride
Of course I'll need to explain briefly
to my son what a marquee was
our history is wholesale
but much of it was priced out
of our ability to purchase it.
Old tv shows streaming
on services like new content is
judged against modern values
because finally time failed
to matter and only content may rule.
I rant in hope of caesura breaking
into my random line
with finality and meaning.

There is no depth. This was not a discussion.