Toyota ’86- a poor man sports car

I am not a mid-life crisis.

Do not look at me and see your youthful years.

I am not ‘fun to play with’ while you look in the mirror and see a crow has leapt off your eyes into the pitch black despair and left nothing but a permanent imprint of its feet.

I am not a mid-life crisis.

Do not see my body as an object while you hold on to what you have left of yours.

When your skin loosens and your body ‘just ain’t what it used to be,’ do not look at mine and think when our bodies touch that the tightness of me will compensate for the fact that you now carry your skin.

It doesn’t work that way.

I am not a mid-life crisis.

I am going through my own life crisis, and my age does not determine me in the same category as a sports car or spontaneous trip around the world because you ‘are still so young to do everything you want to do’.

Well, this does not include doing me.

I am not a mid-life crisis.

Now that death is closer to your time than it has ever been – you’re chasing your tail and everything you did in your 20s – including 20 year old women, but stop looking at me.

I am not a mid-life crisis.

Do not laugh at my jokes and tell me ‘I make you feel young again’.

Do not put cologne on and look at your reflection chanting to yourself that ‘you look good enough’ for me.

Do not tell me ‘how much you’ve accomplished’ in your many years.

Or ‘how much money you make,’ thinking all this will make you look more attractive to me.

Shut up about how knowledgeable you are on this and that, and this and that –

I

DO

NOT

FUCKING

CARE.

I AM NOT A MIDLIFE CRISIS!

You cannot use me as a means now that you’re closer to an end.

Looking into my eyes will not reflect a more youthful version of you back.

My hands cannot smooth down wrinkled and aged skin.

Nor can our age bracket ‘take you back’ to a time you’d rather be –

To do it all again.

Before you fall to the ground and realise: that I am not a mid-life crisis.

You are edging closer to the halfway point to dying and I can’t help you there.