(For National Poetry Month I am writing a stream-of-conscious poem per day. Each poem is  a spontaneous poem single edit – could get messy!  Here is Poem #8.)

we are born unaware
brimming curiosity
innocence and joy

our infantile laughter
genetically keyed to spark
sparkling remembrance

time unwinds our birthrights
leaving us aching more
with each passing morning

elbows and knees and eyes
and teeth and cells we
never knew had been gifted

neurons daily degrading
erasing memories and
hard-won capabilities

each day a wee bit less
then the way I was before
so that death seems a reward

hard-earned and well deserved
after days of shit and piss and pain
yet still I am afraid

life is all I have ever known
I’d miss the cooing sound
of infants newly born

and the way sunlight sparkles
on melting river ice.