Creature of Habit - May 8 2026

 

Creature of Habit

May 8 2026

I am creature of habit;

my well-regimented life

does not waver

get distracted 

or welcome surprise.

There is an order to things

that emerged, like life on earth

in the primeval slime

of my formative years;

lost

in the mists of time

I’m too far gone to remember. 

Or perhaps, some undersea vent

spewing hot infernal gas

that stinks of rotten eggs;

too deep 

to go back and interrogate. 

Others might call me curmudgeonly,

unadventurous,

perhaps a touch eccentric.

Even arrested

mid trajectory

in the arc of the life well-lived;

too comfortable

to risk deviation,

too timorous

to pursue personal growth.

Trouble is, you can’t stop in the middle of an arc

without falling straight down. 

Like a work horse

eyes blinkered and head lowered

ploughing the same old furrows,

I plod along

lost in equine thought

row after row.

Who will some day soon

find himself retired 

to his familiar stall

and the barn door closed.

Then shipped off

to the slaughterhouse

to be chopped-up into pet food

rendered into glue.

If any of my poems are autobiographical, it’s very indirect — little hints dropped here and there. I guess I prefer distance and deflection over revelation and confession. But I have to admit that this one hits closer to home. Because I am very much a creature of habit. And the older I get, the less I resist such complacency. An unusual degree of change aversion is characteristic of autism. Since I check off a lot of other boxes, being on the spectrum (supposedly “high-functioning”, although the result after so many years of life makes me wonder just how high!) is my shorthand way of explaining myself.

Or maybe it’s not preference. Maybe it’s fear, because I feel I have something to hide. Or embarrassment, because I feel my inner life is too unworthy to ask people to bother with. Or just propriety, because I think confessional poetry is too self-indulgent.

Anyway, an attentive reader already knows I’m a creature of habit. Who else would feel compelled to write a poem almost every single day?!!

(Btw, glue is actually rarely made from horses anymore. If not synthetic — which it mostly is — it’s made from the collagen of cattle and pigs.)