Death
whispers to me daily
Call it
age appropriate
Or
mid-life crisis
It doesn’t
really matter…
Where that
parrot used to sit
Now his
shadow lurks in the darkness
These days
go by faster
And my
work demands more investment
The TV
weighs on my mind
And my night
dreams go unremembered
I write
few and far between
And
fantasize without the pen
But I know
that death will arrive
Quicker
So I make
choices based on what seems to matter
As though
I’ll be able to reflect
Even then…
…Forever
the fools vice…
I look forward
to the morning hours alone with Sofia
With her
on my lap, watching TV
Or reading
a story
Or
dressing her barbies
I attempt
to build a future life
As if the
world wont cease spinning
I try to
love as if selfless
But I can
no longer tell if I believe it
Or if the
fear has me on the run
I love my
love
And I love
my daughter
I even
love what I do for a living
I just
can’t tell anymore if I’m really living…
I go
through so many motions
Auto-pilot
responses, Unconscious patterns
And
sleepwalked emotional maps
That I
have started to ask
What is
actually left of me?
And I look
back into so many years of me
All that
exists in the perception of memories
Love and
its many tasteless fantasies
Recapitulation
in its un-glorious history..
Dostoyevsky
once said “the second half of a man’s life is made up of little more than the
habits acquired in the first half”
What else
is there to say about that?
How true
is it for me?
I’ll be 39
in 2 months
Tomorrow
11 years from when she left
And I
don’t regularly think I’ll make it to 50
I want to
be here for Sofia’s Children
My
grandchildren…
But fear
is a motherfucker
Without
health insurance
Without
tireless limbs
Without
the aches where I used to play
Without
fear…
‘I want to
laugh & lie and fuck & cry
I want to
tear down all that’s left to hold on to
And one
day I want to die…’
So said
someone six years ago…
What the
fuck was he thinking?
He was
fearless, he was Bold
He was
naïve, he was young
Youth
wasted on the young
Life
wasted on the living
Death
wasted on the dying
And I pray
the angels nightly
Tempting
their tortures with my indulgence
My
daughter praying their names as unfortunates
Sharing
love where love may not be felt
Touching
shoulders in the void
But we
dream it the same
Entwining
our fates in a God unnamed
There was
a time I longed to understand it all
Now I long
for understanding in camaraderie
No matter
how much I dig
No matter
how much I believe
No answer
will ever find me
Life
wasted on the living…
No matter
how much wisdom finds you dying
No matter
how much pain leaves you crying
No matter
how much regret holds you trying
Death will
find you
And bury
all you carried
Again
ⓒ 2013 Shawn Michael Quinn
