So Now?

the words have come and gone, I sit ill. the phone rings, the cats sleep. Linda vacuums. I am waiting to live, waiting to die. I wish I could ring in some bravery. it's a lousy fix but the tree outside doesn't know: I watch it moving with the wind in the late afternoon sun. there's nothing to declare here, just a waiting. each faces it alone. Oh, I was once young, Oh, I was once unbelievably young!   Charles Bukowski from Transit magazine, 1994