Years to Tinker With

He grew old overnight. I guess everyone does. Time puts us to bed with a thumb. Wakes us up with a fist.

Oddly, we build the walls first. Then the floor. Needing some place to hide more than somewhere to stand.

I could wear yellow if I wanted. Slip inside that sun like I was never a cloud at all. No rain. Just windows drowning in who we've been. The defiant click of as I push the hands on the clock forward to begin another winter. The overflow of darkness that accompanies anything we presumed was ours.

Little swings on big playgrounds chirping out an envious song. As the grass is slowly dislodged from beneath them.

In careful prose with all verbs counted. I explained the trauma. It really didn't sound so bad as I heard myself speaking. Of changes that surely would've come anyway. Walls that never blinked. Though their eyes would tire.

No paint. Colors lying to desperate eyes. No curtains. Clouds pretending to listen. No sex. Covered in our frailties. Cutting hearts out of rumpled pages. With scissors made of stone. And every outline trying to draw a picture we never can.

He grew old overnight. We did.

And I realized it wasn't enough.

Put to sleep by fingers. Woken up with fists. We're never old. We're never young. We're always falling asleep making love to strangers. Waking up to friends.

He grew old overnight. So did I.

Trying to explain to myself what had happened. Trying to understand why I'd rather sleep alone.