I Never Thought

I NEVER THOUGHT

In my youth I did not plan
on needing this body for this long,
so I drove it like a getaway car
I was planning to leave in flames
on the side of a highway.

I treated it like the cabinet
under the kitchen sink
and filled it with enough chemicals
to keep a stadium clean
well into the next millennium.

Getting old
was never on the agenda.
I never expected to outlive
so many people in my life,
including friends and relatives
who were a lot nicer to themselves
then I ever tried to be.

I thought my starving and hearty demons
would consume me long before theirs would.
As it turns out, mine had no need for my life
only my bankrupt soul.

Growing old was not on my bucket list.
Nowhere in my my wildest dreams
did it occur to me that I would
live long enough to meet her,
my wife, and my perfect woman
of those wild tempest-tossed dreams.

If I knew that she was going to be
there, waiting for me like an angel
at the gates of Heaven,
then I would have tried harder
to make it this far in better shape.

I had never imagined that I would be in love,
that I would want to stick around
to see what happened next.
Never assumed I'd be worth a damn
once I got to this point.
I never thought I would look forward
to looking forward,
to see tomorrow.

I never thought.