By Echolocation
Date: 2023 Mar 15
Comment on this Work
[[2023.03.15.23.49.19603]]

Who the f*ck is that?

"There are three things which do not return: the spent arrow, the spoken word, and the lost opportunity." -- ancient Irish triad


Everyone gets to this point
sooner or later --
it's so tediously predictable
and predictably tedious
that it hardly bears mentioning, really.

And yet one day
here (or there) you are.

What happens is this:

you realize that
looking behind
has a much longer horizon than
looking ahead

and you realize that the list of
"what if, yesterday, I..."
is far longer than the list of
"what if, tomorrow, I..."

and you realize that
might have beens
could have beens
should have beens
are running like rats through the maze of your brain

and you wonder
what happened to all the hot summer nights
when the power of
Circe and Diana and Venus and Isis and Ayesha
ran hot and sweet and rich in your veins
and love was anywhere and everywhere
and all you had to do was reach out your hand and pluck it
heavy and round and full and
so
so
magical

and you look in the mirror
at the middle-aged person looking back at you
and you think to yourself

"Who the *fuck* is that?"