Juxtapose

I must be getting old, beginning to hate the cold, perhaps instinctively,subconsciously knowing cold's connection to death, I can hardly catch my breath, smoking like a fiend since I was fifteen, knuckle enlarged and red, the pounding in my head, just wanting to take to my bed but worried I might wake up dead, sometimes I wake up confused, bemused not knowing where I am not recognizing the room and feeling a sudden sense of doom remembering the womb and fearing the tomb... one time I woke up and didn't even know who I was: complete amnesia for a few moments some kind of mental seizure my mind was blank as I wildly eyed the room and tried and tried to remember who-what-where, a brief but horrific loss of my humanity, a glimpse of pure insanity heart gripping panic I won't soon forget and yet...and yet in my mind I am still young while I try to reconcile the contrast between that youth in my mind with the passing of time as I slowly slip my tongue over the smooth gums where once there were teeth and the few I have left give me nothing but grief rotten and black breaking in half I spit out pieces that look like they came from King Tut, I keep my mouth shut afraid to speak or smile all the while knowing the taste of death, it's on my breath, I grasp the depression that comes with age and the impotence of elderly rage and once again I see that child I once was, blonde and tanned and running wild, building castles on the beach, skin hot and brown and hair sun-bleached, my father carries me into the water, gray haired man and tow-head daughter, the surf is wild, churning 'round his legs but his stride is true and brave he lifts me me high above the waves I hug his neck, he's in his prime and now I wish I could turn back time and stay there now and evermore that endless summer at the shore when I was five, or maybe four.