Y: The Same Again

I've only got the same again
and I don't just mean the gin.
My life could be two score and ten.
Over already? Maudlin? Don't begin,

at the beginning in that first light
of birth, don't dwell on the awkward facts
of childhood, move swiftly on, fight
the urge to remember being teenaged, axe

the hazy, lazy memories of student days.
Pass by exam halls and invigilators,
through fumbling interviews, jobs with no pay,
and the first problems with the tax regulators.

Council tax, water, gas and the essential other bills?
don't think about those and avoid household insurance
and forget about the mortgage whose undoubted skill
is in pushing my fragile patience beyond endurance.

Oh God, I need that gin. I'm way beyond maudlin,
I'm seeing more weddings, "chat shows" and cheap flights
abroad to hotels whose unbuilt secrets within
our large enough to loom in the memory after the sights

have faded. Because memory is so unclear,
especially here as I'm remembering forwards,
scared to think about all that I hold so dear,
that I could lose if I were to fall, stumbling, downwards,

failing, getting lost or by some other way defer
my life, watching every possibility overflow the cup.
So I should stop regretting in advance and not refer
to those thing long gone. To the future, man! Look up!