Children stun me with their
relentless energy
to run
jump and yell.
I am still so young
but I feel so crisply burnt out,
caught on the
ragged jagged
teeth of life.
I am in its great
maw, struggling
fiercely, exhausting and bleeding
myself out.
I am on its floor,
pinned against the resisting current.
Will it only get worse?
as years are eroding me and I
will never be what I was
as the sands of time reshape
me and
maybe that’s a good thing—
to be remade anew,
but I would latch
myself to the great tit
of the earth and suckle deep to
take vitality from Gaia
herself and
be human again.

Olivia McKnight