Welcome to middle age!
We have some amazing prizes for you, just for playing!
Let’s take a look at what the next 10 years have in store……
Behind door number one is an invisibility cloak.
It’s so effective you won’t even know you’re wearing it, but you’ll know it’s working because you won’t be seen by your teenagers or anyone of the opposite sex!
And what’s behind door number two?
Door number two is an amazing two-fer!
20 lbs you won’t be able to get rid of, AND an existential crisis about who will be there to help take care of you when you’re 90!
Is that all? NO WAY!
We can’t PAUSE here because showcased behind door number three is the hormone spiral!.
This package comes complete with night sweats, unlimited tears that appear out of no where, and A NEW BEARD!!!!
But I have to tell you, door number four has THE BEST PRIZE EVER.
This package is worth waiting for and you will cherish it.
Behind door number four is
a
box of……….
UNLIMITED FLYING FUCKS that you don’t have to give to anyone. EVER. Take them, leave them, it’s up to you! You’ve earned them.
ENJOY
Not one passenger saw the bird, but all heard his thin, sweet, high-pitched notes.
The doctor, when he came back in, hands full of a tablet’s lab reports etc.
sat spread legged on the stool, rolled a little closer, so his manner showed
concern. Looked down at the tablet again. His thinning hair made me
wonder why he didn’t just shave it. Why he didn’t care to, what that meant.
The thin tablet in his hands’ supple offering. The smell of isopropyl
sturdy in the air like well-mounted shelving, sturdy but not enough
for me to climb, or hang onto, or hold, which is all I really wanted then.
He studied the screen in his immaculate hands, knuckles unwrinkled,
fluorescent bulbs reflected on his moisturized wrists. He looked at me,
looked back at the tablet, back at the gallows of data entry and statistics.
I pictured my grave. Boring and eventual, as a paper wrapper housing
straws in the perverse heaven unity of a hallway’s blue recycling bin.
Just then, he said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this …” Outside the room,
a group of nurses started singing, Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to you…
If snow falls on cedars, let me be pine,
a stolid passion in the coming storm–
to stand where planted, roots gone pediform–
until the wind that sways these limbs consigns
these arches into motion, wild moon shine
awakening what’s petrified & worn
to dance outside the lines, once dendriform
but free verse, now, our poetry aligned.
There is a hidden glen within our words–
a bowl to catch the wind, the rain, the light–
a sanctuary where the trees lift swords
of branches in salute to stars & night.
& when the clouds embrace to break at last
that space will sow the seems once overcast.
