Stains

Where have all the adults gone?

I find myself puzzled and seriously flabbergasted that somehow I’ve replaced the grown ups I used to know. I was the kid, worried about myself and the focus of adult worries, pondering my own future and all it held. The growing up was still before me with maturity and the lessons hoped for to define, enrich and shape my character.

I grew up when I wasn’t looking. Faced forward I still taste the future the same as I did at 18, still slightly terrified of the outcome. But one day I looked over my shoulder and unexpectedly I saw my face in the mirror and it shifted. It wasn’t just my face anymore, but my mom’s. Staring slack jawed in awe face to face with myself…myself “the adult”. Whoa I’m “grown”.

Worries about health and growth turned upsidown, the focus now has fallen on my parents. Complications, hesitations choke up the visible future, its painted with new colors, colors I hadn’t expected. How can it be time to worry on such things, to fetter or ponder becoming an orphan at some point in my life.

Life isn’t painted with dreams and rainbow colored fantasies of what I want and what could be. Dreams still populate but come wrapped in responsibilities. Like a bowl full of jelly beans some tasting so sweet leaving me desperate to have just one more sugary treat, until whoops the wrong color on my tongue passing unseen through my fingers, fills my mouth with the bitter taste dread, disgust and regret.

Mortality comes forward like the sun out at noon, casting its shadow before me and spinning tight circles around me. I cannot ignore his hovered presence as his steps follow closer shading and embracing those around me. I long to go hide from his face beneath a tree, but the sun keeps its time and he always seems to find me.

The ripples go out, and suddenly they stop. It’s unnerving in its closeness, unknown or expected all fall out the same, wielding such exactness, simply The End. Loss tastes the same as it strikes the match, bitter jelly beans poured down the hatch. Someone has left. There’s nothing but pain.

I can’t help but wonder what time is up against. Does it know it’s own name? Does the clock just tick on oblivious to its last tock, or is it all just a joke a lost bet in a game. What comes next? They seem younger and younger, but maybe I’m just older.

I can pack that space full of the ugliest fear, like a canyon greedy with thirst drowned in a monsoon. Crawling into a hole and living so small, shell shocked and exposed terrified of the pain. What’s coming up next, is it my turn or hers? Someone I love, or another one of yours?

When did I get here, an adult tasting the end pressed questioning in this terribly dangerous space. My innocence lost, I’m just like them, the ones on the other side of this life, but not quite I still have some time. Time left to live between 9 and 12 before the clock stops on this round. Time still to count out it’s worth faced forward despite fear of the pain of possible loss. To truly feel the grief stains left by those that I’ve loved, and hope that when my clock runs out, the ones I will leave have my stain on their heart.