Birthday existentialism
Thirty-something,
My shoulder season.
The fragility of finally
Having.
These clasping but tender roots
That reach for
A softer life
Made possible by love and Zoloft and mortgages.
The age that drags me sufficiently
Away from mistakes, from social anxiety.
I am sinking into myself,
Which makes me
Beyond, reproach, right?
Bookish, unbothered and staid.
…
Reading again, even. Writing.
The slow shrink
Into child-borne interests
And innocent pastimes.
Retreating enough to gather
What’s needed for the next act.
Have you forgotten like I have?
The trembling grass below you,
That nauseating tumble through
Pills and poverty,
Through processed food, unending spontaneity,
Compromising yourself and
Coming up empty?
…
Blissful to set that beside you,
A music box on a high shelf, mid-pirouette…
…Blissful also to say it was all done once.
Burning tears into cedar as we cry,
Spinning.
When you only have one life,
That you know of,
I promise it’s your
Solemn duty
To romanticize the melancholy.
…
Revolving back to
When we were shrieking at the sky
And crying on bridges,
The streetlights blurry and contorted and cruel.
The bittersweet lament at passing state lines
Instead of years,
The drunkenness that defies thought but
Speaks of actual depth.
30-something.
Three. Four. An equinox,
Maybe autumnal,
Maybe vernal,
But either way,
A cutting.
…
Bringing days or nights
Shorter, more uncertain than ever.
Bounding in, blustery and interesting
Which seems to me, at least…
For now,
Much more tolerable
Weather.
Whether my zenith or off-peak season,
Spring or autumn, though,
And whether the hours I lose
Are night or daylight,
— The clime warm or cool
The tree-fall truly a leaf or
Flower —
No one can tell me.
Just,“Three. Four.”
…
Will I have one life or two
Will I get the chance to come back
A cat?
No one really knows,
Especially the one standing
Helpless yet ever-potent
In the dizzying spin of it,
Earth rotating too fast
Without my consent.
…
World, please,
Answer me
For once.
You have come too far to
Prove this
Shamelessly obtuse
And hapless
When faced
With mysteries.
Thirty. Something.
My solstice season…
The piercing point
Of the most illuminating dark.
Here is where I pretend not to care
Of what is no more…
— That I was a child once,
That I was wild once —
And so much more sure
Of everything
With less evidence.
© Maggie McCombs 2024. All Rights Reserved.
