Lines

Against the Grain

I woke up for a while noticing it,

A lingering thought in the prism.

Many complain of aches,

pains,

soreness,

irritation.

I wake up new.

My skin is still my own,

My muscles still hold,

My burdens still upon my back.

But the stress of time and life,

They fail to hinder me.

When I was young,

It was a sign of strength,

Of virility,

Of stamina,

Of power,

Of purpose.

I would wake up again.

I could leap from the tallest building,

Take the heaviest of blows,

Bear the brunt of the world.

Anew I would wake.

The Sun would warm my skin, and I would feel

Whole.

Soon my thirties came.

Peers complained more,

Neighbors slowed,

Friends wound down,

The world churned to

A lesser rhythm.

But not I.

I wanted to run and fly,

Feel my feet against the waves.

Feel my heart flutter and pound,

Feel my blood race through,

Like I thought time did.

The forties began my curiosity.

But it wasn't until my fifties I became

Worried.

By my sixties I was shaking.

Not from a frail body or a waning

mind.

But from restlessness,

Why was time not taking its due?

By my seventies I no longer ran.

I felt the drive, I still rose

from my bed like my youth.

My hair still carried its color,

My body still carried its health.

By my eighties I experienced

My first pain.

Piece by piece I became

Very alone.

My friends,

My neighbors,

My colleagues,

Classmates,

Teachers,

Students,

They were dying off.

Still I remained.

Now I crested the illustrious title.

Centenarian

One hundred years alive.

One hundred years whole.

Every moment burdened

Not by time

But insatiable spirit.

I still could run and jump and toss the Earth

Away and beyond the heavens.

Was I beyond the heavens?

Was I beyond my soul?

One hundred and ten.

One hundred and twenty.

Where have they all gone? 

I am the last of my generation now.

One hundred thirty.

The world speaks a different language.

The world sees a different color.

I cannot keep up.

I can outrun everyone around me.

I can lift more metal.

I can climb more mountains.

But I cannot sit still with them.

They speak another language.

Another genre of music my ears can't

Perceive.

Do they perceive me?

Do they see me as a relic?

Do they see me as a god?

As a heretic?

As a liar?

Perhaps they see me

As the lone runner.

T'was no Monkey' s Paw.

I did not ask to run eternally

And in turn forever run myself to

unwilling solitude.

Yet the curse bears itself

On my chest so heavily.

That chest so uncompromising.

Unyielding.

I can topple mountains,

Time has no bearing on me,

But it would crush me so.

Two hundred years.

I am so distant from the world

I grew up in, was birthed in.

They don't know the name anymore.

Of my people,

Of my generation,

Of my friends,

Of my peers, 

Of my grave.

Until I finally dig it myself,

Open it,

And lie upon its hollow boards.

And I let the Earth swallow me whole.