Poem: Crying for myself

This morning I cried for my life
and how the body betrays --
that the soul wants so much to wander
but the physical body cages.

Once I envied the sprinter
the casual ascender of many stairs
the dancer
the mother who chases her errant child
down rows and rows of city blocks without apparent fear

while i dreaded to rise from bed
fearful my heart would fail

I am so tired now, frail
but no envy
just grief, grief, and regret
that thirty years have been spent in illness.

Thirty years too soon.
Sixty years too soon.
I should not have gotten so old
at such a young age.