Eternal Pastures

The decomposition of my body has been painfully slow and I do not recognize this wethered thing that I’ve become. It is as if I have been the unwilling host of a parasite that’s lived beneath my skin and I have been forced to watch as it leisurely sucks the life right out of me. Knowing that one day I will be completely hollowed out. All movement has become a fruitless chore, so I no longer do it. Instead, I spend my days sitting still, petrifying into a statue made of thin skin stretched across a frame of arthritic bones instead of the shiny bronze of my youth.

Beyond this rigid and uncomfortable body, my brain has also become foreign to me. Paths of thought that were once so clearly etched into my mind have been washed away by time and I now live in a vortex of thought and fear. Real memories have mixed with false ones and cause me to question everything.

Life has become confusing and loud around me and I wished to block it out but I cannot lift my green, patinaed hands to cover my ears. Bright colors blur together and hurt my milky eyes, so I keep downcast.  

I long to run like a horse put out to graze in eternal pastures. But it is not my time, so I will sit and wait while the parasite eats its fill and I am empty enough to crack open and be set free.