Losing Me

It’s not the years so much as the mileage.

The injuries. The memories deserting their posts.

Burn bright and

The darkness won’t dare to touch you

For a time,

But everyone has a sell by date.

After that your light will dim,

A shooting star flickering out

Unable to hold off the night,

While others are still shining in their mediocrity.

Was it worth it?

The exhilaration?

The conquests?

The passing glory?

Doing what others would not dare?

Or simply could never pull off,

Lacking sufficient perseverance

To achieve remarkable skills.

The Drive.

Most simply lack the drive

That rules the hearts of others.

That inability to thrive

Without taking a plummeting dive

Into dangerous delights

Which can only be found

Through victory in the face of perilous defeat.

My Drive.

Pushing me on despite

My mounting physical decrepitude.

Killing my heart by degrees

With every dulling knock against my razor edge,

Now dented and nicked,

Dying to be its true self again

And cut the universe in a fit of fury and scorn,

Refusing to let its power,

Once fearful in symmetry,

Slowly dim, unnoticed,

Having failed to inspire awe and dread.

When does the lion cease to want to kill?

Can a warrior be content without challenge?

Without noble triumphs earned by his own hand?

Can a man slide into licentious quietude

Without some surge of lust compelling him to

Prove, to himself, that he is yet still a real man,

Capable of being, at the most basic level,

What genetics say he must?

What primal instincts scream is his true measure.

When does the lion lose desire

To mount the lioness and growl and bite

With each commanding virile thrust?

When does dominion lose its taste?

In work and sex and mighty deeds

Or any bid for power

Our fallen hearts are slaves to by

Unquenchable ambitions

Yearning to glut themselves

On our own choice proclivities?

And can a man, no longer himself, live

Without living a lie

That slices through his guts,

Like some decades long act of seppuku,

Which will never successfully

Unburden the shame he feels?

An undead beast who having lost the flame of life,

Merely stumbles and feels about,

Hungering for its warmth once again,

Ceaseless, without rest.

Can a man find himself?

Reinvent himself as age accumulates like a stalagmite,

Hardening into an immobile shell,

A paralyzing restraint, irresistible, inevitable?

Can he take his flesh and intellect,

Broken now like a shattered clay vessel,

Reform it into something different and new?

Something with purpose?

Intentional function?

Value?

An image warranting respect

That could bring him glory

Again in some other way?

Because that’s what really matters

To us dreadful, driven few.

The Glory.

Stories, memorials and grand accomplishments

That live on for generations

After we have passed,

Our end burning bright

One last time,

Instead of quietly fading away.