29

Is four years longer than I planned on living.

Aint that a bitch?

Really. 25. A blaze of glory. That's when/how I was gonna go.

Instead, I'm now in my second year of grad school drunk on French Pinot Noir, looking through my friends' various photo albums posted online, thinking "gee, that looks great...I wish I was there", or "gee, I feel like I've been replaced", or "gee, I miss that beach", or "gee, I seem like a distant memory to these people."

I have, in a sense, become displaced from my old life. California? Yeah. I used to live there. New York? It still feels equally homey and fracturally distant. My friends' lives seem to accelerate. Marriages. Engagements. New loves.

And I'm just looking for the next job and someone I can tolerate that can tolerate me to go along for the ride.

At 29.

I have become translucent to those I miss most.

I have become a victim of identity theft, not of the credit variety but of the soul.

I have become overtly critical of the very art form I intend to become great at and wealthy from.

I have become bored with my work to the point of death.

But I can't give up on the next job.

I preach hope in my classes yet can find little in the mirror.

I'm good, yet fear I won't get better.

I fear I'm better but won't get good.

I'm lonely.

I'm repulsed.

I listen to the blues. They cheer me up...to scream along with someone else's pain.

To be or not to be: that is the question.

Or is it?

What is the question?

Does the question have to appear now?

It's not appearing.

Apparently.

Good night sweet prince.

There's always the bar.

At 29.

You can try to save some one's life, as long as it isn't your own.

Thanks, Central Park.

NYC in winter.

Alone.

Thanks, East Village.

I'm not myself.

Because I'm trying to help you.

I'd help myself...

...but that's not the point.

This could be a poem...

...too bad it's not.

And if it was a poem...

...it would suck.

Hell(o) cornfields...

...18 months to go.

Then back to New York.

This time in Fall.

Where it will be different.

But the feelings won't be.

The chill of hope.

The smell of the leaves.

The flame of optimism.

May it not blow out.

Out, out brief candle,

Life's but a walking shadow.

It is within the shadows that we regret to trespass.

Don't tread on me.

At 29.

The drugs are not working.

But something else is.

What it is, I know not.

At 29.

The play's the thing.

At 29.

Transatlanticsm.

I learned it from loving you.

At 27.

At 25.

When I should have stopped.

But I keep on.

And will do so.

Because I must.

At 29.

All I have left.

Is what lies before me.

Someday I'll break my staff.

But before that I'll avenge my father's death.

And then I'll conquer France.

And then I'll contemplate in solitude.

And then I'll be on screen.

And then you'll tell me you loved me.

Yet it will be too late.

For I'll be past 29.

In Central Park.

In the autumn.

When the air is chilled.

Yet I'll still stay warm.

There it is.

At 29.