Bone Density

Diagnosis: Osteoporosis
Patient: Life

It seems that the bones of my existence lose more and more of their density.

When cancer took my sister, the termites of life hogged the stage for the first time, but I thought they were ants and shook them off.  When they ate their way through my father’s heart and aorta, they also built a nest in my chest.  Lung capacity decreased to a five-buck oxygen filling, the stomach refused admittance to anything but crumbs.

Today, five and four summers later, the termites have eaten their way through the skeleton of my life. After breaking its hip, forcing future steps into insecurity, they seem to have reached their first climax this year.  Now they are chewing on the inside of life’s sternum, building a nest through lungs and lining of the stomach, bend the spine, lower life’s head – which has not listened to “Chin Up” in eons anyway.

…they creak, the bones of my life, I wonder which termite treatment might be appropriate.


©beatrix brockman