Peter Pan

this life i cast before myself like a shadow invisible to you
is my own private joke:
	sixty year old heart seventy year old lungs
	hid beneath skin     that looks twenty-five
someone mistook me for a student last week
almost all my friends look older than me
but they’re all healthier
	especially wendy
	who     is     twenty-five
people tell us we’re a cute couple
when’re we getting married
i think of her     almost as a daughter

it’s appearance that you applaud
mainly because     no one wants to see inside
	where it’s dark
	and there are thousands of cupboards
	filled with ripped hearts
	and hypochondriac livers
	and memories congealed in greasy plastic bags
	all in the dark
	with nails driven deep in the doors
	and coated with blood
	that long ago dried dead
	around them

from Auto Bio (2010)