A Bachelor at 36
I insert “does not” between he & love me—
verify I’m crawling inside
my feelings. When that doesn’t
work, I shower the floor with torn petals
to retaliate against a group of my friends
dancing at a wedding I wasn’t invited to.
Sometimes, what momentarily marks a sense
of sadness may as easily be a sign to call mama—
her face is what I see
reflected in the dog’s soft, brown eyes
when he & I are both distraught
over the spilled bowl of water.
As a bachelor at 36, I “work things out”
as a courtesy to appease those who dumped me.
I’m a bachelor at 36, so I sleep as long as
I want, with whomever I want.
Dog, TV, internet, birds—
they are my friends & family now,
which is why I weep over the crushed birds
the dog leaves on the pillow.
I find joy again discovering how much
I never knew I love architecture.
I am a bachelor at 36,
& don’t have enough time to kill
before I realize there’s always time to kill
when “something better” is feasible
only to those of a certain age.
That body I see in the mirror isn’t
the same on the other side;
those antithetical sound bites—
“bright water” & “dumb as a bowl of mice”—
I use them to prove I, too, can be a mysterioso
no one but me understands,
the same as when I say nevertheless to appear
unconcerned with premonitions—
that as a bachelor at 36 I’m getting closer
to the freedom usually reserved for the dead.
I gaze into the black & white night
wishing for something to have me,
perhaps the colorless pines
in the valley, or the vegetables
struggling in the soil imploring
my aid—the dirt beneath
my fingernails evidence I tried
unsuccessfully to claw them out,
but I am a bachelor at 36.
No one ever need measure my life
in terms of how many missteps it took
for me to get here.
I just got lost along the way somehow.
***
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