Nigglement

I walk carelessly between fine lines
Some of them drawn by me
but mostly they are sketched
laid out and prescribed for me
by others
And yet I'm a grown man, aged enough
to be responsible for choices
Long past any parental dictates
Yet not far enough perhaps
from the echoes of requirement

No, no, that's not the word at all
so little is required of me anymore
the word's shopworn and yet
there's that nigglement behind the ears
That creeping up upon me, a stealth
of something far less easily defined
So subtle it leaks away from description
but it's there like a duplicitous thought
Something I'm better than awake
yet see in the nakedness of sleep

Expectation, yes, yes that's a closer word
Catching me when I least expect
and when I thought it all lay well behind me
Like a long dinner, an interminable feed
where the main course was overdone
but the salad surprisingly crisp
and a spinach souffle light as clouds
still brings the expectation of dessert
and afterward a well aged cognac
There's always something after

I suspect it's the something after
that walks behind me
sniffing in doorways
letting me know its breath
and ducking from sight when I turn
There's the difference, in early life
everything is next and now it's after
Next is an easier expectation
a ball less punishing to drop
But here I stand, in a life of mostly after