Everything hurts in the morning, the back, the neck, the knee,
the consequences of a life of hauling comedy,
the physical toll of standing wrong on stages for decades,
and the funny thing about it is it never quite degrades.
My chiropractor has a nameplate that says comedy adjacent,
because half his patient roster is from the entertainment placement,
comedians and wrestlers in the waiting room together,
comparing core-level complaints in the miserable weather.
Everything hurts but that is funny if you hold it right,
everything hurts but that is funny in the morning light,
the comedy of the body breaking down by increments,
everything hurts but that is funny and it all makes sense.
I did a forty-five last night and woke up like a protest,
every vertebra complaining with a deeply felt unrest,
and I thought, this is the funniest thing that has ever happened,
to be forty-nine and aching from a thing you’ve not abandoned.
The audience will never know the backstage physiotherapy,
the heating pads, the ibuprofen, the quiet anatomy,
of getting ready for an hour of looking effortless and easy,
when everything inside you is complaining, stiff, and breezy.