i don't feel that i change

but the world sits lower;

further

Time is no friend

but only a fool would call it enemy

In truth, I fear it

grains of sand and tiny ticks

every one, a thief

stealing little bits of me

until I blow away like dust

faded and forgotten

I do not wish to grow

I do not wish to change

I want to be permanent

a legacy, a fixture

a statement

Forever unchanging

I hear my mother’s voice,

soft and sugared, chiding

Everything changes with time

I wish it were not so

Mother laughs 

and I wonder if time passes at all

In her eyes, I am still small

Foolish and needy

in mine, her arms are still soft and warm

Just like then, 

she presses a kiss to my head

Time is a gift, she whispers,

so ever abundant and free

Run wild in its field

and know that it does not last

I asked at seven and I ask again

why?

Foolish child, she'd say

twinkle dancing in her eye

Time must pass

and you must grow

it is the growing

that makes life worth living

I don't mind the growing but

I fear the changing

There is sadness

in her eyes when she replies

to grow is to change

She is not wrong

But I fear it nonetheless

Who will I be?

in a day?

in a year? 

or even in an hour?

A new man will wear my skin

have my laugh

and see through my eyes

I do not know him yet,

but he’ll be known 

as me just the same

He is not.

he will be older and wiser

and maybe even better

He could be loved,

adored in a way that I never could.

but what becomes of me, then?

Do I just fade away?

Unnoticed? Unmourned?

Unloved?

When technology grows old

we call it obsolete and replace it. 

I fear that will be my fate.

Cast off and forgotten 

in lieu of a newer model

it is death, I know

but is my body nothing more

than a gravesite thick

with fog and rot?

I don’t want to die

but time must pass

And I must grow

I must, I must

by god, I must

But that doesn't make it any easier. 

Do you hear it?

The tick of the timer,

the toll of the death bell

growing ever closer

in the stillness of my end

there is mostly silence

but it is there,

in the thrall of the quiet,

the softest of echoes

calling forward and back

asking who am I?

Beyond the shifting sand,

behind the fading facade

Who am I?

I think that i know again and again

That I have the answer, at last

and then it changes

Maybe, I'll never know

Maybe, I'll always be scared of who I'll be

maybe, there is no permanent definition of me

Maybe, I'll change and change and change

right up until the last second before

the past passes me by and

my future fades away

I will change,

however much I resist,

i will change

and it will be terrifying and horrible

and a death unto itself

but after, 

after I've unmade myself entirely

been reconstructed piece by piece,

my mother's voice will ask, gentle as ever,

My brave, brave boy

did you get taller?

I will smile and nod

I did at seven

and I will again