The Time Traveler
A poem about chronic illness.
I am a time traveler.
While my face retains the smoothness of the mother my hands have become the arthritic clawed appendages of the crone.
They ache with the stabs and
throbs of the ancient yet living.
Overnight I have left my youthful body in the past and awoken to find the liver spotted grandmother I always thought I’d someday be.
I am a time traveler.
As my mornings turn to evenings and my evenings become night my steps shift away from an easy purposeful stride and into the slow, painful, shuffling,
of legs
whose feet
have left too many footprints on this earth.
I am a time traveler.
Each day I age one hundred years in twelve short hours. No rest comes to strengthen my bones and renew my flesh.
I wake entombed in the decrepit body
I fell asleep in the night before.
I rise expecting to shed the wrinkled weariness of my aged self like so much crinkled crepe only to feel it fall heavily across my body as the sun traverses the sky.
I am a time traveler.
My time machine was born within me,
a broken set of poor instructions written into my genetic code.
Like Prometheus I am bound to spend my days
in repetitive agony
only to be healed
by the velvet darkness of the night.
I am a time traveler.
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-- Art and poetry by Misty Morehead --
all rights reserved.
About the Creator
Misty Morehead
Art and poetry
pour from my mind peacefully
quieting the noise.
I am an artist, poet, and spoonie. Art and poetry have gotten through the roughest times of life. They help me release the sorrows and find the joy.
Now I share them with you.
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