Deadpan (poem)

Cold autumn nights have never mattered more:
Five years down the line, I look back
And what I miss most are the painful days,
The insane decisions, the cut-throat risks,
The people long-gone, at least in spirit.
The turn back to the present is just too much.
Who or what implanted the thought
That progress was linear? How different
Would we live life if we knew what fall
Was right around the corner?
Maturity is no horizon: it is a bleak cliff
And it will greet us at the bottom.
Everyone must go, including the ones you thought
Would always be around. The rising in your throat
Would reduce themselves to tears, if not for anger:
Too-justified hate—of the loss of something great—
Ensures that any tears are hot, and a prelude
To violence, whether aggressive or aesthetic.
I held my end of the bargain and never stopped
Improving, and fighting for everything above.
You—gaunt. Changed by your twenties,
Disfigured into a thin phantom, emptied
Of the life that made you what you were.
Is the past tense all there is from this point on?
Is it really the case that our youth is gone,
Never to return? Perhaps. I thought I didn't mind
Until the cold nights rolled around
And you were not there—no, not you.
No husk, even living, could replace that.
I loved you—you were the fucking man.
Now you're just a fucking joke. Deadpan.