Ode to Old Age
I walk into a room and suddenly
I’m at a loss. What did I want in here?
That puckish brain tweaker, reality,
Has learned to shift its shape or disappear.
I used to have to smoke expensive weed
To tune in to this zoned-out paradigm.
Today my skull packs all the buzz I need.
I’m high on failing cells and passing time.
Each friend or relative that I outlive
Is one less witness to my foolish youth.
Now any version of the past I give
Is more or less the undisputed truth.
What names and numbers I may have forgotten
Are obligations I’ve been glad to shed.
Untangled from the past I once was caught in,
I rest in peace before I’m even dead.
Chris O’Carroll was Light‘s featured poet in the Summer/Fall 2015 issue. His poems have appeared in Poems for a Liminal Age (published to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders), The Best of the Raintown Review, The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology, and 20 Years at the Cantab Lounge, as well as in numerous print and online journals, including Angle, The Asses of Parnassus, Free Inquiry, The Rotary Dial, and Snakeskin.