thirty-two

Back when a man's hand was used for nothing but shaking.

(I think this is my Paris post.)

I'm looking at my thirty-two year old self in the mirror and I'm scared.
Maybe I'm getting to the half-way point cuz I'm almost positive this is my mid-life crisis.

I look at my face in the mirror. Scratchy. My chin, my hair, and the wrinkles lining my eyes. Am I sad?

I guess it happens suddenly, huh? Because that's how I hear the knocking. It had been a while, but I still remembered how to open the small door to my bones.
So, it was in my hands that I held them. I wanted to rock and to roll with them. They sent a shock through my palms that ignited every regret I had left in me. I heard them talking and it was the first time in 10 years.
That's when I saw in my hands, mixed with the blood and the bones, a picture of Paris.
I stared at her. Did I even own her from the start? I don't think so, but I know Paris had seen me. I'm thirty-two and even dad doesn't know what to believe anymore.
But, somehow, my bones drew a sketched up picture of the Eiffel tower and I knew it was for me.

Suddenly I remembered the bricks they used to keep me here. The night my bones helped me sand them down to make my escape. As I stand here in my 10th grade locker room, my heart is hurting and I remember my first look through that hole at the Eiffel tower. My Beacon. There she stood, shining, melting the snow in my footsteps. My bones are beating to get through to my 32-year-old self as I relive once more... stepping through the hole, my hair brushing against the crumbling bricks, and hearing Resistance calling my name.
I wish I never looked back.


But that night, my bones were set. So I turned and ran even faster.
I jogged till my legs were burning, but I only took life from the fire.
Because that summer I slept under the Eiffel tower and I will never forget it.


But now I'm thrity-two, looking down at my hands, shaking my head and thinking I should've sealed up that hole. I didn't realize how I was holding that picture so tightly.

What happened.
I'm 32 and I have just as many hours in my day as I did when I was 6. As they always have. All that's changed is that I've read so many more books.
Life happened.

Life isn't called living if you're using a dead player.



I'm still very much a little boy.