For the Longest Time

For the longest time nothing hurt

This is not talking about the kid life

with scraped knees or even the broken arm

or leg or stitches from some bigger than normal

cut on a finger slammed in a car door

or the knife you took out to play with

that suddenly became a knife

when it had been a toy before the gush

For the longest time crossing the street

was done with the light

never the jaywalking that others did

sure getting away with something like that

was possible in a short moment

when the brain says oh why not

and sure everything was pretty much

by the book as far as parents were concerned

The pain in this conversation isn't the kind

of pain that lasts a few days from a pulled

muscle playing footfall or the bruise

from falling on the playground

where you cried in front of your buddies

and never would do that again

as long as you lived until you found out

you were gonna live long and things wear

Now here comes the day when the morning

sun is way passed it's prime

when the afternoon is closing in

and you're sixty something waking up

when everything feels like a hammer

was used by all the black-eyed characters

in those dreams that stick beyond eyes open

the kind of dreams where walking doesn't hurt

The knee first or maybe the back and for some

it's a joint in the finger that goes raging

like a rabid dog howling foam

every direction just waiting to get shot

maybe its the cramps in a calf or stiffness

in that first knee and then the notice

everything is screaming at from toes to hair

when eyebrows drop down with a wince

These are the years beyond the time

when there was no pain that old people

talked about and others didn't hear their words

until those words slammed into an elbow

like a car door opened just as the bike

is ridden into it full speed ahead

the day beginning when every thought

drags these bear attacks just to the toilet then the sink

It all gets slow like the dark piece of cloth

paused in thought as a bug on the carpet

stared at it for ten minutes just to make sure

no legs are moving no fingers moving

when the big toe on the left foot

starts throbbing to no radio song that just stepped

on a knitting needle which jumped up

through the ceiling in the basement

Old men say old age isn't for sissies

but maybe all this happens to a sissy

not in the too prissy kind kind where things were

softer in every moment of that softer or juicy

peaches kind of life when everything tasted sweet

now it's here and what has got to be done

has to be done or it going to look pretty grim

around the edges here or smell of urine

When the kitchen is in front of the pains

even standing can be just awful on the hips

dishes don't do themselves and first meds

gotta be downed before anything remotely

caloric slips passed the tongue into the genuine

pit of a painful stomach that hurts beyond

the first fart of the day when it seemed relief

but didn't last long enough kind of pain

So maybe expectations of these horrors

would end huh and while being dragged

though these events wasn't a first choice

in reading it sorta got some attention

that something worthy would end this

parade of dog teeth sinking into live bone

oh please do walk away painless because

nobody wants this ever ever for the longest time

Barry G. Wick