I think I’m done here.
I’ve seen the things I wanted to see
I’ve done the things I wanted to do.
At least, I am reconciled to
Not seeing or doing more.
I’ve broken some hearts,
I think. No one has told me so.
I’ve lived some fantasies,
A threesome, an escape
Running through back gardens
Leaping suburban fences.
Fast cars, fast women,
Slow nights in seedy cocktail bars.
I’ve been made happy and given happiness.
I’ve tried marriage and the relief of celibacy.
I have given and received the healing force of adultery.
For some, a life enhancing liberation,
A beneficial reordering of things.
I could tell you about my life,
To me quite ordinary but perhaps
To others, quite exotic.
But to record it is to seek immortality,
and fail.
Many have already forgotten me
Through death or disinterest.
All memory of me will pass
Disappointingly quickly
But I will be beyond disappointment.
No regrets, no could have done,
Could have been,
No what ifs.
I have been, I have done.
Is the world a better place?
No. But that was never my plan.
I came from a random arrangement of dust
Lived a life without care or conscience
And to that dust I will return,
A dispersion of atoms of no consequence,
drifting and percolating again through the world
Destined to become part of something, or somebody, else
Perhaps become, briefly, consequential again.
So, my patient friend,
Swing your glistening scythe,
Speed me on my way.
Terry Wassall
