I turned forty this year.
What the hell happened?
Yesterday, I was eighteen,
cocky as summer heat,
newly graduated,
ego swelling under the gift of a
1978 black Pontiac Firebird,
its Phoenix blazing across the hood
like a sun that never set.
That car screamed down my street.
The road was endless,
money from Taco Bell shifts jingling in my pocket,
basketball pounding the asphalt
where my sneakers had grown roots
since freshman year.
Nights blurred,
beer foam on my lips,
friends stitched to my side,
mornings waking up in places
that didn’t remember me.
Irresponsible? Absolutely.
But God, it was freedom.
Now at forty,
the horizon is a cubicle wall.
Obligations pile high,
hours traded for comfort,
that does not breathe.
What have I done with my life?
Nothing that silences the ache.
Yet even here,
in this quiet cage,
a coal refuses to die,
glowing under the ash of my routine,
waiting for the wind of decision.
This year,
the clay is still wet.
The story is still mine to carve.
The road is shorter now,
but it runs in every direction,
I will drive it
with the Firebird in my chest,
its wings burning,
its eyes fixed
on whatever sky remains.
