Donnetta gave us the freedom to borrow a line/s from a poem to inspire our writing today. I have always enjoyed borrowing a line but I didn’t expect my line to come from a podcast this morning. To write my modified Golden Shovel, I borrowed “old limbs keep falling even when no wind stirs” from Helen Pruitt Wallace’s poem, To the Buyer of Our Old Home.
This poem is dedicated to every young woman who thinks she’s fabulous and has no fear of aging.
Why didn’t anyone warn me?
No one talked about aging the way they talked about puberty
Didn’t they know we wouldn’t fear lean muscles and high sex drives?
Why didn’t I know the bra I prayed for would become a daily chokehold?
Why didn’t I know my natural libido would require replacing?
What happened to energy and enthusiasm to M o V e?
Why is staying asleep each night harder than falling asleep at a matinee?
Where did my muscles go?
Are they hiding inside my bones?
When did my arms start flapping?
And why are my thighs CLAPPING?
Why didn’t anyone warn me?
Hair down there would grow wilder?
And getting waxed would become more rattling than a root canal?
Who’s face is this?
Did my grandmother sneak inside my soul?
Is my mother reincarnated in me?
Who’s ass is this all bagged up like cotton balls?
Does my back ache because it’s finished with standing up for me?
Do my feet hurt because they’re tired of walking in my shoes?
Why didn’t anyone warn me the way I am warning you?
Wait, what were we talking about?