Baby Boomer
I do not want to see this happen to me
My nose squashed against that centre panel
Reinforced glass, hospital slick and tasteless to my tongue.
Watching you, click in heels , embarrassed, not looking back at the lined old man being foolish in the tin squared window of his life.
Standing, underlined by pitiless fluorescents, diminished in flannelette pajamas.
I do not want to be me as I watch myself
Become; be not as I was, or seem to be on a good day, too tired to do.
Too tired to be, except alone
Smiling my tired smile of memory
Cheery professional voices. They echo on the painfully shiny floors and walls.
No contrasts except
depressingly sad works of 'art' the governors have invested in and now share with us unfortunates to break the top notes, absorb the lies.
They speak, the doctors, nurse, whatever, they are the same to me now. No “mister”
even
when they haven't been introduced.
Just a cheery and insincere, but very practised; “ Now Alan, how are we today”
As if I would know how 'we' are.
I don't want to be watching me/ but I am and do.
Even as my sap rises and my doctor warns of blood pressure and he alone amongst all men,has the strange distinction having had his finger in my arse.
My prostate is ok.
I am not so sure that he left me emotionally well.
Is that the sign of age? Watching me, myself become old?
I am sure I didn't when I was young.
I am sure I just allowed for the signs of ageing as a process of mental maturity.
It wasn't of course. Maturity is an option most of us men don't take.
There is one benefit of age.
Knowing that I never ever really grew up. Never grew out of trains and Dinky cars. Still worship Donald Campbell, Dan Dare and Aneurin Bevan. True heroes that no one recognises now.
Too late now to apologise for all the adult pretending I did.
The sage advise administered. I must have got some things right, or maybe not.
Never mind I digress, oh god there is another sign. “ I digress'
Words that even in my halcyon steam radio days would mark a man as long gone and senile.
A phrase from the pictureless TV, the wireless, words that impressed with their gravitas, long ago and I repeat them now, 'I digress'.
Visions of a suited man reading into a microphone.
The suit because one had to be “properly dressed” to be on radio. True.
The glass doesn't taste too bad. Minorly disenfectant. I wished they would use the orange based stuff.
I can see the youngest Nurse.
I lip read as she says to the fat one with the legs. “Look at that, the old bugger's mad'
I don't like watching myself grow old. Not here at any rate.
I 'll give them what they want. Or expect.
My final show. Fearful, incontinent, tongue tied, just like my first day at school.
I won't be home for tea, mum.
