Retirement Time

Every day is Saturday,
and every night is Saturday night.

“What do you do all day?”
I get that a lot.

“But how do you keep busy?”
I’m not busy, never really was.
I don’t want to be busy.
I hate being busy.

“How do you fill the time?”
Fill it? It’s running out.

The present is all we have,
but there is no present,
just the neck of the hourglass
where the past flows into the future
or the future into the past.

And yet there’s only now.
There’s no more eventually.
So I only do what I want to do,
all the time.

I don’t have to do anything,
don’t have to go anywhere.
Right there is my kitchen, stove and fridge;
there’s the bathroom, a few steps away;
there’s the bedroom: my pillows and bed.

I should travel now, see the world?
The thought is exhausting.
There’s my window. See the world out there?
It’s come to me.
Why should I even go out?
I have it all, everything, right here
at my fingertips.
I’m a hard living, hard drinking, hard driving
couch potato. I’ve been everywhere,
seen it all, I get around... online.

Don’t know what time it is,
don’t know the date, lose track,
makes no difference, it’s all the same.

When did I become the old guy
yelling for everyone to quiet down
so I can get some sleep?
Did it happen one night?
Or was it gradual, like my toes slipping out of reach,
slipping like innocence,
into cognitive dissonance?

It’s quiet now. So quiet
I can hear the ringing in my ears.

An empty chair.
Did somebody use to sit there?
“Can’t remember,” they’ll say.

The years, the days, the hours glide by,
digital, glowing red at night,
1:23, 4:44, 5:55, 10:01, my favorite, 11:11,
then 12:34, rinse and repeat,

and so on, until
smooth, still, tranquil,
the mirror-like surface of a pond,
not a breeze, not a ripple...