working out

once not so much the work-
out queen, somehow becoming
a workout fiend, if still one
gasping, choking on breath,
on bad days beginning to believe
there is little to celebrate
in this supposed achievement,
but still eager to expunge
my everyday someday self of
the eventualities
of excessive flesh aging.
so I work out, constantly, full
of false certainty that health,
if not wealth, follows the diligence
of such efforts, and hey--
I'm not a kid anymore,
but I want to look like it,
and it would be nice to avoid
the knife, at least until I'm
truly mid-life crisising
and there's little consolation
left in much of anything except
denial of the details. and so
little mentioned are the pains,
the constant aches, the
strains and pulls and pinches
and the strange wince I've
started to sometimes give every
time I stand. this is forgiven,
forgotten in the onslaught
of change. no babies, but still
busy baby-talking myself well
anyway, and this body rebirthing is
painful, but my mind erases it
to enable me to continue,
maybe, or may it be that I
dwell in the hurts, believing
them earned, hoping to purify potential
pulchritude of the sins of sad
flesh. that makes this a purgatory
but also a stage, a petri
dish for the growth of my new
experimental ego, and a place
to pursue a promise
that the chance remains
to be continued, to have another
act--before it's even intermission--
even if everything
I start doesn't always
work out.