Why not live my life as if I’m married?
Work less, shower at night, sleep naked?
Perhaps I’ve let myself go to seed,
thinking I can’t be me until I’m dead,
or, if I should be so lucky, in love.
I don’t need a woman to be comfortable,
as I would be, if I had one, hereof.
My place mightn’t be head of the table,
as the greatest artist of all time.
Perhaps the emptiness and the hardship
that I feel is a sign: perhaps my rhyme
will be what it is, good enough, in His grip,
but shy of some that were, and will be.
Do I push myself too hard, driving what
cannot be driven, undermining glee,
and leaving myself, for shame, in a rut?
I prayed about it, and this is my answer:
treat yourself with the kindness and respect
you expect from your lovelorn partner:
all that’s missing, then, is what you detect,
in your bed, in your imagination,
author of the love, that, in heaven, you’ll find,
when you yield, at last, to His creation.
If my heart should skip a beat, then I’ll mind
the knowledge that I’m all it takes to be
the object of his desire, without
the pride that mightn’t come with what i’d see,
looking through the lens, the glass, i’d tout,
thinking His triumph no greater than mine,
which would be a mistake. So I forgive
myself, now, for fighting His design,
forcing an art that is not mine to give.
I slow the pace, then, for those I forestall,
when, thinking I must be as good as Him,
I refuse the love of each and all
that make there way to the mountain’s rim,
seeking my acceptance. Work a little less,
in a different way, and behave as if I’m
already there—that, for me, would be progress,
since I’ve been living, hence, on borrowed time.