Myth of Growing Old as Brothers by Tim Neil

Aging is a possibility, like a promise
made between you and me on an autumn day,
when Halloween had thrill.
I remember our names and the games
we played, Konstantin, but not our jokes.
What matters is that we laughed
and grew hoarse like two old men smoking
—secretly, behind a garden shed, hiding from our wives.
You are married now, I heard, and I am in love
again. My lips are buried beneath the lips
of my loves; they live on me like ivy.
How has your heart changed, Konst, in the cool shade?
Has it begun to moss? I would like to know.
Tell me of your children, the crackle
of their laughs, what you have learned from them,
what you didn’t know there was to know.
I can tell you about the woman with the desert-red hair,
her surgery with words, what she has shown me
about spells. There is so much we have to tell,
Kon, so many stories we grew
while layering pain on top of age,
living without each other.

Tim Neil is an actor, poet, and teaching artist from Baltimore, MD. Their work has appeared in Washington Square Review and Ligeia.