The television, the magazines,
the advertising.
All of it.
An entire society
obsessed with youth.
People, doing all they can
to rally against the impossible.
Gyms, creams, magical serums.
Elixirs of lies.
Pills and makeup.
I remember being young,
the anxiety, the fear
everything a battle.
There’s a desperation in youth,
a kind of frantic mania.
Obsession in everything.
Disaster around every corner.
Then one day,
the signs start to show.
Some thinning hair, a wrinkle there,
a tiny lump of cellulite on their
once perfect ass
and to them
it will be,
the end of the world.
When I stare into the mirror
I see a life lived.
A man, whose been beaten,
heartbroken,
loved and hated,
fucked and fought,
sometimes at the same time.
I have screamed at the
indifference of it all,
the unfairness, the constant
effort required.
I’ve pined and raged.
I’ve wept enough tears
to fill a bathtub.
Laughed so hard
breathless and uncontrolled
that my stomach ached.
I’ve seen death
and birth,
success and tragedy
and
I’m still, terrified.
but
I see a man, who has died
again and again
yet somehow
always managed
to rise from the dead
like a grinning Jesus
too stupid to know
he was beat.
