Joints… aching like rusted hinges
Hair… slipping away like autumn leaves
Memory…flaking off like the old paint that covered my walls
Fatigue… like a tide that never recedes

I feel as if
I've carried centuries in a single skin
Lived lives I can’t remember
But still feel in my marrow

And yet
I’m nowhere near the halfway mark

The same clock hands, circling
Almost in slow motion
Same dull rhythmic beating
Routine wears like sandpaper
Smoothing the edges
As the years blur and blow away