A Life on Loan

Everything in my life is second-hand.
I've learned about politics
from Saturday Night Live.
I've never heard a single song
unless or until my favorite musicians
did it, wrote it for others, or covered it.
The lovers I've had have all been
someone else's lovers first.
Most of what I know of the world
I learned from books--
and that's even with being
right up in her face every single day.
My dreams must belong to someone else,
so far are they from what could
ever be real in my life.
My life itself, my life's breath,
has been leveraged many times,
with the Reaper, with the Devil, with Gabriel.
I've woken up in pools of my own, red blood,
stared The End in the face as a matter of course,
walked without fear in places from which
I should never, fairly speaking, have returned.
I often wonder how much longer
the accountants will let me go
on credit, how much
the angels will demand in exchange
for loaning me a life I've squandered.
What's a squandered life worth, anyway?
The borrowed and stolen elements
which embody me were taken with
steep interest, and I wonder how much
of my flesh they'll ask for,
how much of my lifeblood they'll need to
drink in order to forgive me for
all the borrowed time I've blown.

(2005)