Old Bones Poem by David Self

I did not grow old gracefully.
I wore myself out.
Ground my joints to powder, burned through muscle and ambition, and woke one morning to find a stranger living inside my skin.
This body is a ruin now— a house with sagging floors, cracked walls, and doors that stick when I try to move.
My knees remember every mile. My back collects pain like a miser collects coins. Nothing bends without complaint. Nothing heals without negotiation.
I used to run.
Now I watch runners pass and feel something uglier than envy. A bitterness that settles deep in the bones, where youth once lived.
Fitness didn't leave in a dramatic farewell. It stole away piece by piece, taking strength, then stamina, then confidence, until all that remained was the memory of what I could do.
Motivation followed close behind.
What is there to chase when every effort feels borrowed? When every improvement is paid for with days of soreness? When the finish line keeps moving and the body keeps slowing?
People say age brings wisdom.
Mostly it has brought limitations.
A catalogue of things I can no longer do, no longer lift, no longer endure.
The world worships energy, speed, discipline, reinvention.
I wake exhausted before the day has even begun.
And the cruelest part is not the pain.
It is remembering.
Remembering the strength. Remembering the ease. Remembering a version of myself that would look at who I am now with disappointment.
Time is not a teacher.
It is a thief.
And it has been emptying my pockets for years, taking a little more each day, until all I seem to have left are aches, regrets, and the bitter knowledge that no matter how hard I fight,
none of it is coming back.