I feel old

I feel old, so old.
And tired.
A tiredness you can’t sleep off
Because it stains your bones, flesh
And mind, like thick red wine
Stuck to a brand new carpet.
 
My brain is knotted, the folds sewn
Together with wire, clumped with pain
Trying to unravel out of my skull,
To relax and be liberated of thoughts & impulses
Stars and feelings, break free
From the prison it inhabits inside my head
 
And I feel so old, like a creaky cedar tree
That has sunk its roots to the same bed of earth
For so long that it can’t see the forest,
Can’t glimpse the sky, only feel the
Burden of this deep attachment
Can’t blow with the wind
Fixated in place forever
Creak, creak, creak
 
My bones feel the world’s breath against them
Blowing through them.
They hurt. They heave.
When I wake, they remind me of its suffering
When I lie down, my spine aches
For the rest of the world.
 
My body is burning, my skin swelling
With the pain of the world.
And I feel so old, so so old.
My thoughts don’t flow like they used to
Because the rivers don’t flow, we drained them dry.
 
My eyes don’t see things like they used to,
Because the world’s gone blind
With all this pointless suffering
My heart doesn’t feel like it used to
Because too much love’s been betrayed
My nerves are on edge
Because everything’s tipping over
And we don’t know how to stop it
 
My shoulders are weighed down by bricks
So many bricks
All the bricks we’ve thrown at each other
Built empires with and then torn them down
Made homes with and then bulldozed them over
They’re scraping at my back
Like claws of species slipping away
From us forever, because
We were too selfish to think of anyone else
 
Here one day, gone the next.
I can’t cry because there’s no water left
We’ve used it all, sprayed it all
Washed our cars and then
Thrown it down the drain
Whilst in deserts and towns, children die
From thirst and hunger
The drip of a tap is not something
They’ve ever heard before.
 
My veins pulse as the sound of
Digging fills my ears
As we cut open the heart of the earth and
Suck out its blood to fuel our
Transient existence
Drip, drip, drip.
 
I feel the world inside me.
Around me. Beside me.
I feel its suffering around me,
Throughout me, outside me.
And I feel old, so, so old.
Painfully old.