i was given the ability
to stand tall and strong
but
i'm on my hands and knees,
bent under the weight on my shoulders.
that weight is unbearable -
i feel my back cracking under it.
i know i have it in me
to stand tall and strong again
i just have to dig deep.

65 years from now when my grandchild looks me and asks me
"Grandma do your cheeks look like they are falling and why does your backbone rise higher than the rest of you?"
I will answer:

Baby girl what they don't teach you in school is that the older you get the more gravity pulls at you.
Keeping your feet planted and your mind out of the clouds.
Life moves down instead of forward.

Bones grow frail and muscles shrivel up and weaken just like your ability to dream.
Dream of what you’re going to be,
"when you grow up" because,
darling this is it. I'm all grown up.
I am all I was ever meant to be.
My clay has hardened,
no longer able to bend and curve with the wind.  
Too weak to keep walking forward.

That is why baby run while you still can,
discover the world.
Leave footprints in every corner of existence,
because when you're as old as me your feet will be sore
and won't be able to venture deeper into the pockets of the universe.
Roots now bind me to this little house where I will keep moving down.

Gravity is too strong for me now dear. My skin has already given up. Succumbing to the mighty force. Falling away from my bones that lie hollow inside my cheeks engraved,with the memories too valuable lose after  lifetime.
So that when this world had
changed,
beyond recognition,
I will still hold inside of me the days that I spent in the sun .

As for my back.
Honey, the best thing you can have is a backbone ,
because when everything in this world in pulling you down,
you're going to need something
to keep holding you up.

My backbone,
a tribute to the years
I spent tiptoeing across
the coal beds of this life’s mighty fire.  But one day it will turn into a white flag of surrender.

That is when you know that gravity has won.
I will sink back into the earth
and maybe start again…

Your spine is a holy place
From the tip of your neck, to the cradle in your pelvis, it is baptized in your waters
Starting with cervical, a lucky number of seven sections
The number of days it took god to create the earth
Greek mythology tells me, Cer is the personification of a violent death
Vic means to substitute,
Therefore this section substitutes itself for your violent death
Holding up an unlucky number 13
Pounds.
Of skull, and flesh and
Blood. Which it facilitates the flow of
It has hollowed itself out for nerves
Hollowed itself out so that you may feel
Everything.

Thoracic.
A dozen protective pieces,like the disciples foundation
Hammered in by thor himself
God of the sky
The horizon within dotted by a heart, some lungs,
Spleen, stomach, diaphragm
Stars in your very own galaxy

Lumbar
Five little graces
Luminary
Holding enough weight so
that the sun could settle down
right between your hip bones
root within your nerves
Apollo has come to visit
Showing you just how much holy light you can carry