Kairosclerosis ✔ [poetry]

old ages

29

OLD AGES

⸻

many years from now,

when we're flipping through an old, yellow, musty photo album,

when we're looking back at our youth,

when we're sitting by our grandchildren,

recounting our insignificant life story

while they're already long fallen asleep,

when we're by the windows,

watching our sons and daughters pulling out of the driveaway,

knowing they will never come back for a visit,

will we regret our choices?

will we regret our marriage,

our children?

will we regret

how we live our lives,

how we threw away the time faster than we burnt up the cheques of hard work,

how we rarely paused before we speak,

how we shifted the blame,

how we ran away

from the problems

from hardship

instead of fighting them head-on?

will we wish to turn back the clock?

to meet our parents once more,

to embrace them,

spend time understanding them;

to mourn their deaths

for longer

so we can hunch over their bland, kind smile funeral photograph

without being ashamed of being immature?

will we yearn for those first loves,

brimming with glances and giggles and

innocence of spring breeze and winter scarves,

of cold chocolate and hot honey?

will we sigh and murmur

if we had waited a bit longer, we would have

married a better partner,

be happier,

be wealthier?

will we look at those god-awful, badly-unfolded events, with wistful wisdom

of years

months

ages,

thinking we could have done it better?

thinking we could have avoided it altogether?

will we agonize and wonder about the future of our children?

how they'll venture into life blindly, like us, once upon a time

not knowing how to plan

not knowing how to work

not knowing what to do for money

with money;

how they'll burst into the outside world with no understanding but much enthusiasm

thinking they know exactly what and where they are heading,

thinking they know exactly how and why they are going to change the world;

how they'll stumble in love, heads full of airy and rosy ideas,

how they'll fall into the heartbreaks we desperately want to protect them from.

how they'll hate on us,

how they'll forget us,

how they'll become us,

how they won't be us.

many years from now,

when we go to bed,

tuck ourselves under the cold sheets

try to put ourselves to sleep,

when we sit by the kitchen table,

under the bright leds light,

listening for the hissing of the radio,

when we leave voicemail messages to long-dead friends and too-busy children,

when we look forward to our grandchildren's cursory smile and long-hauling boredom,

will we stop regretting our life, as we come toward the end?

will we truly enjoy the old ages of carefree?

will we silently pray for god to let us re-live,

once again?