despite having shaved countless times before,
i still find myself cutting myself
like an amateur butcher
too afraid to go near any major arteries,
connecting me to adolescence
when i learned how to shave for the first time,
when i sprayed on too much axe body spray
to hide the rank sweat smell of the boy’s locker room
from following me home,
well, i guess there are quite a few things that don’t change
when becoming an adult
i wonder at what point and at what age
people will stop referring to me by my first name,
and start calling me mister so-and-so,
at which point, i wonder if it will even matter,
i wonder if i will even notice,
or perhaps i will embrace the subtle change of my name
with the graying of my hair
and the furrow in my brow
surprisingly, i have responsibilities that i’ve been entrusted to take care of,
though it’s nothing really major,
in fact, most of my responsibilities are pretty boring and i’d rather not do them,
so i write this procrastination poem rather than actually do them,
and in a way, that kinda means i did them,
or one of them, at least
Fred Aiken Writing 