just old enough to die

you can find yourself becoming
jealous,
when faced with the amazing talk
of the future of technology,
despite the fact that us humans may
fry like bacon in a frying pan due to
global warming, or nuke ourselves into
oblivion---
that said,
it can be damned depressing
to know that in fifty years
the possibilities will be limitless,
so different from the way things are
now &
yet,
so unavailable to many of us
who already see the clock ticking
faster than it has ever gone.

when you start to have genuine
interest in living,
you sketch out where that living can
take you &
never factor in that you just might be
old enough to die
just when it starts to get really
good.

sure, there is the carpe diem &
there is the suffering of the world around
us, which relatively is supposed to
encourage a lust for every moment
that we ourselves are not undergoing
such torment (that is, if we are that
fortunate)---but the conclusion is the
same---
this fragile package of expiring tissues &
veins, bones & organs,
will not make it to see the things that
blow our minds to ponder
now,
if you are in fact already half-way to
the statistically lifespan
of your given sex, race, ethnicity, nationality,
etc.---
like a person who wakes up one morning
with a disease that they’ll die from that night
just a day short of
the cure making the front page,
the whole lot of it seems
that much more
pointless.