(After Vienna by Billy Joel)



The pacing is off.

We’re older than

being too young, but

still just as life-starved.

Awestruck by our flash

in the pan. It’s strange.

They say we look like stars.

Forgetting we combusted

aeons ago.

The burden of burning out

to light your sky. 
I tried the ‘slowing down’.

Careening off the rails, just

another crazy child, just

enough to hit the ground

in spite of falling. 
Lately I’ve been falling into

dreams that feel like waking.

Not quite lucid, lurid, luring,

in their seductive iridescence.

I still smell the gasoline.

It smells like home, or hope, or fire.

They remember the immolation

but not the accelerant it needed.

It wasn’t needed, but it helped.

We’ve always been alike that way.

Likened to memory, liked as a story.

Cautionary tales are people too.

Or at least, we were once. 
Once, I was everything I wanted.

Too soon or too late.

I’d trade it all

to meet my father in Vienna. 
I bet he’s doing fine.

I hope he waits a while

after all, I’m early,

and still far off from halfway through.