old and broken

He had been sitting again. In his rocking chair on that front porch that he built with sweat as a younger man. He was once proud. Of what he had built and the friends he had and, most, the wife he loved. She loved him too. Enough to care for him ceaselessly and to ignore his selfish tendencies and to try, even before herself, to make him smile...always before herself. He had promise, or so he thought. Unfulfilled, and that he knew, and now this is what he considers most.

The warm summer was giving way now. To cooler months and shorter days that always bred depression. None worse than that one though. When it happened and they lost promise and his mind weakened and his resolve dampened and optimism died. The proper vocabulary did not exist. The perfectionist had lost control, words became tougher and uglier anyway and silence was easier for his diminished capacity. The world was wrong. Or maybe it was god or evolution or all them at the same time. But there was no one to take it out on and so, he blamed himself. Then and soon after and then for years on end. And this was ruinous.

He rocked methodically. Content and comfortable like one does when favorite song plays in head. Looking at him, one can see the years. Living still within his wrinkled face, greyed head, pained movements, and yellowed teeth. His eyes give a thousand-mile stare and his responses are delayed. Long enough for one to question whether he even heard the question in the first place. And so he rocks, measuring his life against the ridiculous standards he had set for himself. Sure, the friends he knew, the days he loved, and of course his wife, his partner, his queen. But goddamn those standards and how they were never neared, for whatever reason and whomever's blame, and the angst that brought and how it kept him frightened to death of committment for fear of failure...and where that leaves him now...an unfulfilled promise.