tomorrow morning
i wake to forty.
twenty years of
my life
were spent
in some form of
alcoholic haze.
forty years of
my life
have been spent
trying to get high.
i used to
spin around
until i couldn’t
see straight.
i used to
eat until i couldn’t
move. i
used to figure
out ways to
watch movies
and
listen to music
that my parents tried
to forbid.
i have always
wanted
more than
i have.
and tomorrow
will come
and i will
want more
than i have.
but what i
now have is
a memory;
that i am not
very social
and do not go
too far out of my
own comfortable way
to make others feel
loved and seen and
cared for.
so when tomorrow
morning unassumingly
tells me,
“you are forty”,
and i am dizzy
and flabbergasted
at my accomplishment of age,
and when my day is
otherwise mostly normal,
without the acknowledgement
of my successes,
i can remember
that i mostly do not
acknowledge others,
and i mostly live
in my own head,
and my own head
is now not soaked
in alcohol, but
still it spins,
and still
i seek out
an escape
from seeing things
as they are.
this is how
they are.
zakschafer.com 