This couch gives me respite
from feigned intimacy, and fools gold tooth smiles
from tossing and turning all night
in high thread count sheets
the couch is kind
and I am tired.
lonely like a fledgling that fell
staring down the barrel of a whole life lived
just like today.
praying to the gods of night
for some incendiary thing to happen while I sleep.
Someone to change me or kill me.
Someone to hold me like a glass heart or shatter me beyond glue

I have never been afraid of getting old.
though most of my friends are.
I spend many of my nights thinking
of the days to come
when I am alone
unknown
misunderstood
surrounded by the young,
their arrogant kindness
their presumptive pitty.
I think those will be the days when I am
most in my power.
when I know best who I am
and have the glorious memories of
a life lived,
memories of friends, pets, and lovers,
smells, dawns, and cities.
until then, i will be lost within the
hordes of ticking, whirring, cogs
unaware of the gravity of our lives
the importance of our memories.
lumped in with the masses of thirty-somethings
terrified of being old, and alone.
but I have never been afraid of getting old.
I am afraid of spiders.