Terror.
Abject terror.
Breath-stealing three-a.m. shadows
That create dark visions
Of neglect and demented solitude.
Holygoodlord, the terror.
Does the brain-eating disease skip a generation?
Who will like me
If I’m not in there
To make myself likable?
Who will care for my dignity?
Who will care at all?
The perky pep talk
Could be easy:
Do the paperwork,
Have the chat about wishes,
Keep the network strong,
It’ll be alright,
Look away,
It’ll be alright,
It’ll be ok.
But the unknown
Is not known,
And the future is full of it.
So I breathe.
And then breathe again.
My papers more or less in order,
Except for that one detail,
It says cremate, but please bury,
Because nourish Earth which nourished me,
You’ll remember, right?
Re-writes are expensive.
I breathe,
And think about which friends
Have long-hauled this far,
Which ones will walk the second half with me.
Who could I bear
To let be how intimate?
I have one Millennial, maybe two.
Is it disingenuous to deliberately seek
A Gen Z friend?
There is calm
In imagining eighty year old me,
As I want her to be,
Today’s me doing my best
To remember to invest in her;
I breathe once more,
Keeping the terrorizing shadows at bay.
Anastasia MacDonald