Had I only been aware,
I would not have burned my youth so low,
would not have ground its ash into my hair
til timeworn spent and leaning,
I shut the curtain, snuff out the day's last butt,
and fade into the suffocating evening.
And if I listen now
across the stillness of the waning room
I hear the echo of a shallow wheezing
(the air's been growing thinner with my hair)
and death slinks in prepared to reap his seizing,
till the morning cough reveals he's just been teasing.
And this, I think, is hard to understand,
that I would trade it all - the memories, the loves,
the marks that show I once scorched through this land,
if I could burn a little once again,
if I could sear away this muzzy mist
to see a girl whose eyes asked for a kiss.
Is it enough to say
that when she sits across the aisle,
the air around her scented like a rose,
that I begin to breath again,
and worry that I'll somehow be exposed
for taking her this way, into my nose.
They have words for men gone past their prime,
an old pervert, a lecher, or a fool,
that mounts the stair one slow step at a time
to find he's no exception to the rule,
that every man will have his days to blaze,
and when they're done, he'll slowly slough away.
