"Mortality"

​

Your clock was ticking the day you emerged from the darkness;

It kept ticking,

when at 4 you fell from your bike upon the pavement,

at 14, you heard it tick again when the fever gripped you like a storm.

It ticked once more at 18 when your heart was crushed by her indifferent eyes.

At age 22, you heard yet another tick,

at the sound of your name not being called to receive your degree.

The ticking intensified when turning 33,

you lost it all: your family, job, and home.

When the cells proliferated and swarmed your body at 50,

the clock ticked even faster...

70 years old,

bones brittle as glass, you lie in a cold, shadowy room, listening: tick, tick, tick.. (slower)


Broken dreams, pain unendurable, hope lost

A silent cry, a question-'why?'-a final sigh...

The clock stops ticking...

​

By Freddy Fabian

20 February 2018