Of all the fallacies, Golden Age thinking is the one
I could least likely fall victim to, since I am a poet,
and being miserable is in a poet’s job description,
whether it involves the present, the future, or the past.
And what is this happiness everyone’s talking about
anyway, let alone how and where to actually find it?
If anything, not having been born would be the only
glimmer of happiness I can think of, but it’s too late.
I was never in a hurry to learn how to play an old man—heck, being a responsible adult
was already a challenge—because I always had plenty of time to do so, or so I thought,
until the day I woke up and realised with horror that the scarecrow was already on the horizon.
I wonder if that’s why they call it the golden birthday, except I have a sneaking suspicion
it’ll turn out to be made of pyrite.
I don’t own a telly or that defining piece of furniture
that usually occupies a prominent spot in the living room,
yet I’m indistinguishable from your average couch potato,
at least in spirit, if not in body (although the latter is slowly
catching up with that image), which makes me wonder:
Is the bookworm a social pest or just a harmless homebody?
When I was a boy, a drawing of red ants
walking along a Möbius strip caught my eye.
I thought their lives must be pretty boring
(not that mine had ever come close to even a clumsily sketched tesseract),
but I never imagined I could envy them, and yet here I was,
faced with the alternative—relentless pestering:
Get out; find someone; live a little!
Hell truly is paved with good intentions.
Would you rather be a sperm whale
suddenly called into existence
several miles above the surface of an alien planet
or an equally blessed bowl of petunias?
I guess either would work, considering
they don’t have to contemplate
the sound of ice being scraped off car windows
early in the morning to realise everything
needs to be done again tomorrow.
The memory of each mistake, like a complementary mishap
to the countless accidents that all too often fill life, is the lullaby
that accompanies me every night as I rest my head on the pillow
of an empty bed, and yet I still consider myself lucky—at least
I no longer have to smile.
I can’t remember what came first: I stopped dating or going to the beach,
and honestly, I’m not sure that’s even something worth dwelling on
since, considering those measly three dates, there wasn’t much to give up on that front,
whereas it was the beach that made me stay here all those years ago.
But don’t worry; I’ll be fine. After all, I was raised in tough times—I can survive
a minor withdrawal.
There is no question that I would like to know the answer to
more than: Why do people have to love people, anyway?
I guess it will remain as much of a mystery now as it was then.
At least spelling is no longer a problem, even for a dyslexic like me.
But I could use a bit of that ‘easy come, easy go’ attitude,
if only to save face—after all, not every hopeless romantic can live
up to the silver screen.
I watch Baroness Reid of Cardowan and wonder
if this is what it feels like—dying
of life: one by one you lose your passions
and learn the names of flowers along the way.
But why then would you grieve in a morgue
instead of a maternity ward?
hidden pilcrow 