Glass Half Empty
I guess it’s too late
to be that man you imagined
but never managed to be, the slow darkness
of your mid-thirties sucking your ankles,
thick mud, borne down with children
like a jungle gym.
Chances whiz by you
like red cars with me at the wheel
driving like I stole it.
Your laziness settles in you, a lead crow,
keeping you on the fold-out couch, passion for nothing,
blame for everything.
You spend your days in stasis, lying down.
Degrees gather dust in cheap frames
as your gut slops over your pants,
not that you ever wear real pants.
Too much work, too much effort,
to put energy into something real,
so much easier to let your droning whine
fill the empty days like wine fills a glass,
to drink them and let them keep you heavy and slothlike,
the TV’s stories scrolling past in front of you
the only adventure you seek.
You hate
your job, where you live, why the bed beside you is cold.
I cannot make you change like I thought I could,
cannot relocate the potential, the spark I felt nine years
ago.
I cannot hide my contempt
as you grow more grub-white, more bent,
more downturned, more sunless and small—cannot hide it,
but can toss it spinning from the window at you,
my road dust leaving you
to your always-half-empty glass.
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