Its bones

What nepenthe do you have to repel my anguish?

Retelling me of my birth with empty words?

Speaking of my youth as if it were your own?

I am neither your son nor the friend you’ve known

With a body made wholly from unearthly bone

What cure do you have to this horrid blight? 

That rots my humanity day by day

To mother I’ve become a stranger but in name

And father sees me as his greatest shame

These terrible bones have made their claim

None are to blame for my terminality…

For this is no cancer or sickness anyone has seen

And in the the winter I wonder about the distant spring

Whether men like me that dark space doth cling

If it's truly just death that our peace would bring?!

20th November, 2024