Poem: I can't really call this a poem

When I’m 87 I will move to Key West and be a shell

burning on a lounge chair, under the blue sky, feet

spread in the ocean. I know I’ll still have shit to be

burned away even then: thoughts, any thoughts,

which have always been the way the brain dances

around truth. I’ll be tired of all thoughts by then. I’ve

already felt all my feelings. What will come then will

be a mystery, maybe even a rebirth, something new.

Something will come, because the burning will

happen, the days and nights will flow.

Doing my work of therapy has mostly been further

and further self-awareness. This has taught me

that I became other people in childhood. Ego

doesn’t necessarily happen as a positive. I’d like,

then, to be stripped of all the pollution, this history,

the false ego that is stupidly proud, and in a place

where the world is sweet, healthy, even benignly

dangerous: I could be extinguished by the dark

ocean.

I’ve long seen that nothing in our adult life is

right: grabbing a beer, having a job, liking music.

Lost, we passively take these things from the

ground or the shelf. (Drive by inner fires, we move.

Drive by inner frozen earth, we are still.) Who are

we really?

Remember there’s Key West, where you may just

have a glass of water, not a beer, watch people milling

about, finally ignore time. You won’t need to get on

a boat and sail out into the sea for the final adventure.

You will be the boat.