Today

Today it's like when this started
I'm full of snot and aches and self-hate
Only now I'm 55, not 19,

and the recurrent URIs settled
into a stupidly-named diagnosis that make it sound like I need a nap instead of a new body.

I always hoped I could be Somebody
so the brilliant hatred of self-hate would fade like all too-bright lights
and eventually be an anecdote I'd tell in the past tense, like something I grew out of or something that just went away.

Like if you read this poem-story
and like it
maybe the hard light that shows everything I think is bad and wrong and undeserving will dim and there will be something left
worth loving.