How I Have Destroyed Myself... Poem by RIC BASTASA

last night
when i arrive home from work
i undress myself before a mirror
seeing a worn-out body
furrowed by
too much stress

who furrowed all these lines
who wrinkled all these previous tight skin
the smoothness gone
who whitened this hair
and created the ruffles in my fingers
undulating waves
in my thoughts
endlessly rocking my mind
to such exhaustion?

the mirror is cruelly silent and if it has only a mouth
and a tongue
it could have uttered and lashed me with

'You! '

slowly i swallowed the word
I

Time should have been a good companion
loyal to my endeavors
but i rushed it like a slave
and so it has
taken its own revenge

these furrows
funnels of my Frankensteins...