Old age hit me
like a fist
I was planting roses
carelessly, never anxiously
avoiding their thorns
my teeth were my own,
I could bite into a hard, green
apple easily
there was no consequence,
no fear of an explosion of
false enamel
vegetables grow into
something beautiful over time
if you treat them right.
unlike the shell of a woman
bleached, oversaturated,
badly composed, framed
by misery.
A seventeen year old girl
bending into the hands of
a childlike man
unaware of the flames
she was igniting,
her body slamming
into the kitchen floor
you will cry in the morning,
weep for the innocence
you lost, the shock of
surviving your own
******
unwantedly.
I was thirty before
I tried to disappear
back into the oblivion
of filthy London streets
thirty pills, one for
each year, a litre
of ***** and a
badly written
death note
I survived. Just long
enough to paint a
picture of adulthood
a husband, a wife
a son, a daughter
I was everything
and nothing all
at once
old age hit me
like a fist
a rattle of dust
in an urn
and a hundred of
the flowers I have
always hated
they cry, thinking I am lost,
I smile, knowing that I
was never found