Old Bones

Nightfall is a place for me to close my eyes

Where angel lashes fall like downy feathers

And slumber eases the mind

Over there is a strip of flowers, wild and uncultivated

I stand amidst them like a newcomer

Like the Velveteen Rabbit

Shabby, my petals wilted and in disarray

I am tired today, and so bored of weeping

I want Gentleness to stroke her fingertips across my furrowed brow

And iron out the worry line whose crease grows ever deeper

This is not the way I want to feel!

Not the mood in which I prefer to tire

Oh, but I know that my worries are my own

My troubles, my own

So I will scoop them up with a slotted spoon

And watch the disquiet flitter and falter

Like flour dusted in the kitchens of yore

I don’t need to reclaim those troubles

No, I don’t think I do

They can just rest there, alone

Victims of my own restless boredom

It’s tiresome to lug them around

Like a second set of nettlesome bones

Leave me, old bones

I am far better off without you