To Grow Old

I taste the blood of my youth,

Coppery soot and rotten truth

All mix in my mouth to scream

I feel gravel bite at my seam.

Right into my core with each

Bellow that breaks from reach

Of their pounding fist and hungry

Hands that with me do not agree.

I hear my wailing cry like a siren

Echoed back as a laughing grin

Jeers over me to haunt my wake,

And my childhood it does take

To drown deep within the river

And to me adulthood deliver.

They shove deeper, harder,

Rip from me my daughter.

I see dirt pressed into my cheek.

To death do I knock and seek?

And shadows lumber near

Like monsters to appear

Before dreams spill to sunlight

That may chase away the night.

But, no day is to come

Far, they blot out the sun.

Their hands are at my elbow,

Whispering of what is below.

I smell the curse of putrid rot

And lose the last of my thought.