A happy life is the one I never had,
but saying so may suggest I’m unfortunate
or ungrateful, either assuming no control
over fate or implying being endowed
with something of value in the first place,
as if a homo perditus were destined
for something other than a stint with a parasite
with angelic—if superficial—features.
Sometimes you have to have faith in yourself,
even when the mirror screams ‘old and ugly’
and your desire for sex—meaningless or otherwise—
no longer goes beyond the topic of an article in a rag
casually opened while waiting at the hairdresser’s,
or so they say, and there may be some truth to it—
atheists decorate Christmas trees too, after all—
but it’s hard to shake the hand that just castrated you.
hidden pilcrow 