One day, I'm afraid
I'll have slept so many nights,
For so many years,
Years and years of sleeping and waking
I'll be birthed from the brick coffin of my bed
Look into my bathroom's toothpaste splattered mirror,
and see a body that has slept too long
A face like a shadow
I don't recognize it.
I won't recognized the cracks in my knuckles
Or the veins portruding from the spider web of my neck.

I won't just be old.
I'll have fallen into the lung crushing grip of routine.
I'll be a mask, the peripheral in my own vision,
the pause in sight during the blink of dried up eyes.
I'll wonder, "Where have I gone?"

I'm afraid I'll speake stale words like two day old popcorn.
I'll cough out a lonely dialogue in a home undecorated.
Old sentences, old work, old routines dusty and dull.
Bland like a sung song in a straight line.

I think, it should all be alright.
As long as I'm still singing.
If my feet can still twirl in awkward glides across
my un-scrubbed kitchen floor,
and my lungs can still produce a tune.
My eyes closed, envisioning something more.

I know it can be alright.
Everything can be alright again.