Old Age Is Not For Me

I stare at birds flitting branch to branch chirping happily but birds flitting branch to branch don’t touch me anymore my calloused senior feelings come more frequently now just like my urge to pee Sad, pitiful, stupid stuff enters my mind, then a good thought emerges, I look for a pen but often by the time I get pen and paper it has disappeared, morphed into another brilliant thought hidden in dementia My brittle hair falls over my eyes; really, thin gray strands fall over my eyes The sweat mingles with the glue on my “rug” diluting it The brace on my crippled left calf pinches; it hurts. My paralyzed left arm pains me too. Suppertime bell; I race my wheelchair to a place at the dinner table, when I get there I’m out of luck; no place for me. I retreat back in my room where the TV is on the blink, I sit and wait, but what’s a cripple to do? If there were ice floes I’d insist on being on one. Am I lamenting my old age at 80 and the tragic stroke that befell me ten winters ago? No sir, not me, I’m not a complainer as a kid I wished to be old, I wanted freedom, to be like an adult; what did I know? Through my young boy's eyes old was preferable than living a denied, put-upon life as a child. In the end, the old people were right, I knew nothing, old age does bring its horrors, I am experiencing my share of them. I ask myself, is it better to die sooner or hang around until your dry, wrinkled skin falls from your bones? "Sooner, yeah! Later no!," the old man yells in his vacant room My problem is, life is not through with me yet! I do cry for respite from my life, but death is relentless so what can I, a mere mortal do? I can’t go against the Gods, can I? Can anything be done for me? Not a damn thing Life dances and death impatiently waits. Death delay no more, I plead, Dance and help this crippled man in need More punishment don’t mete He just yearns to be freed.