That Slippery Slope

I don't want to get old, he said
It was easy to watch the past
the best of who he'd been
The very thing he cherished
cascading over and over
just as the shadows passed over his face
as we drove under street lights
at 38 miles and hour in his car

Songs playing out
designed to push away the failure
the lack in his life
Because he is what was
The Night Watch on the South China Sea
Ocean smooth as glass
New wave music playing out
on his cd player in the freezing cold
To get him through the starry night

Each song playing then, plays now
His happier, identified past on his iPod
in his little mat-black economy car
On a silky spring night
a bit too warm, and too early for it's season
Windows down
Hoping for enough courage
to get him through the next hour
To get him through tomorrow

He asks me not one question, not one
He speaks over anything I offer
I am simply a sound board
A new pair of ears for old tunes
and what they represent 
A time that slithered away from him

He'd wanted to be married, hell yeah
and he figured he would have been by now
He'd wanted kids, sure he did
Thought he'd've always been a good father
He likes kids, of course he does

But he's 48 now
it's too late and he's past all that now too
He doesn't want to be a Dad in his 50's
He'd dated a few times and had his heart broken
It wasn't him
He likes to think
I can see it, say it enough times and it is true
lies he tells himself and hopes are truths

The Cult, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Psychedelic Furs, Joy Division
The list was endless
My god, he knows the albums, the tracks, facts about the bands
Each and every one, precious
highlighting how great times are gone
Now he does just enough
to keep the cobwebs from gathering in aging joints
$1 Coors Light bottle beer night Thursday's
With his Boys

Trolling Hotties and pretending
None of it makes him feel old and tired
Unless he's reminiscing how good it Was
His eyes a bit hollow, a little swollen from hang-over
The eyes that have given up
The smile that tries, and fails
To convince even him that this life isn't  proof
of his being incapable

He just turned 48 last week
He's that guy now
That old guy, not completely creepy, yet
But he's not...
He's still That guy
That guy that swaggers in his comfort zone
and insists
There's enough time to be all the things
He never actually became.