daily

Alternate title: let's pretend i'm sixteen again. It's 2020, indulgence is survival.

 

I meet my dying every day,

going my way to work. She stops,

sometimes, to say hello, or raise

a hand to wave. 

No need to grab my wrist

for attention. She can wait

the years until I settle down

into my grave.

We'll have time, then, to 

get down to it: the conversation

we delayed, the real business. 

No rush.

She'll be familiar then

already, a face I've seen

daily, a white face, her eyes

a dark smudge

I can't read, though she seems

friendly enough.  Some days

I think, looking in the mirror

I'm becoming

less myself. My eyes less real,

like hers, my skin less flesh

and blood. She waves.

One day my heart too will

cease drumming

my blood cells on their tireless

rounds, it will all be still,

we will sit down

together

and she will put her arms around me

like a friend.