One Sunday morning, I was knocking around my new bachelor apartment. Simple, sweet, no notes.

Suddenly, I was struck in a visceral way with the most palpable gratitude I have ever felt in my life.

Yes, my relationship with my partner had ended, but we were still parents—together—of two beautiful little girls. We still loved each other dearly.

This crazy mosaic of thought and life flashed through my mind, and I sat down to capture this moment in one inspired burst:

I used to love beautiful women with their asymmetrical noses
Who whispered inaudible sex talk in the dark.
But now as I grow and become tired in those places
Where weeds are abundant and whippoorwills sway,
I still feel no mid-life regrets.
There are no regrets when you refuse to grow up
Until you are almost 40 years old
Like there are no fences to put before two-year-old girls
Who fool you as they discover absurdity and truth,
Regrets and fences are futile.
I used to love a good hammer on a rain-soaked Sunday,
I used to love to be touched by the lines in some poems,
I used to love to go dancing with you in the moonlight.
Sweet sorrow illuminates December snows
What’s more, there’s a hole—a hole in my aura
A footstep, a throwing of things, over and out.
Perhaps you will love me again in the future
Perhaps this is something neither of us should know.

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Author: Billy Manas
Image: Pixabay
Editor: Callie Rushton