What twists and splits the mind?
Till it rips and snaps in time
What makes the mightiest men dwindle?
Their life never to be rekindled
What makes the memory so swiftly waste away?
What makes the brain’s matter so quickly turn from gray?
Why does this poisonous curse not engender hate?
Its effects despised, yet the cause so few wish to abate
Senescence, oh senescence, humans’ greatest curse
The cause of feebleness, of endless lives wasting away, a nurse
Caring for one in their final months
In agony, terror, pain — a disease far worse than mumps
Or measles, or cholera, or cancerous tumors
For senescence causes much disease, like was believed of ill humors
Senescence — so solvable, so horrible, remains
History’s most lethal plague, so deeply engrained
Death ticks down, like a ticking timer
Diseases which only affect the old, afflictions like Alzheimer’s
Yet death comes for us all until we end it.
Though deaths perch at each shoulder is carried by senescence
Were an enemy, a corporation, someone to harm as much as senescence
It would be scorned as history’s worst thing, unfathomable malevolence
Yet people carry water for the devourer of minds
The bringer of death for all mankind
The dwindler, the plunderer, the ender of lives
The twister, of sisters and wives
That causes the skin to flake
Tremors in the hands to begin to shake
The hands to wrinkle
Weird hair to start to grow, where once it was unthinkable
Is not its badness so transparent?
That makes so few know their grandparent.
Is not this an obvious horror?
This bodily contorter
This which robs the eyes of sight, the ears of sound
Which makes deaths door begin to pound
Which makes people more depressed
Ushering in too quick a death
This breaker of bones
This wrecker of homes
This carrier of such disease
A worse bringer of it than fleas
Which warps the skin, which twists the mind
It all begins to fall away, in time
Is its badness not the most obvious of truths
Like that 1+1 does equal 2
That the day is brighter than the night
That birds, not people, are capable of flight
And yet, so many with zeal that seems endless
Over backward bend, to defend senescence
“Would life be meaningful” from you the answer they try to squeeze
As if life’s meaning comes from end-of-life disease
Would the meaning really dissipate?
If when one turned 68.
They had just as much vim and vigor as when they were twenty.
At that age, of meaning they had plenty.
Life’s meaning comes not
From the frightening thought
That occasionally strikes people
That one day, they won’t heal
From some ailment, vicious and deranged
That will cause ungodly pain
Before they waste away
So don’t “grow old, along with me”.
Remain so young and free.
That when you’re 63.
Great and fresh life shall still be.
Should we not break this trend that leaves
In “a bed and a bathroom, a place for the end,” unfree
Our lives’ final moments
Is this not life’s worst component
If we could brim with vigor
And have the time of vim be bigger
Would that be so horrid?
Would the plan be so sordid?
If life lasted longer, was better, in fact
If life didn’t falter, the longer it lasts
Is it really conceivable
That death is not bereavable
That the fact that life dwindles
Is what that which meaning in life kindles
No! Death is often too horrific to ponder
How could its absence make value be squandered
So let senescence go, senescence burn.
Let it, like smallpox, drop its agenda and adjourn
Let it begone from earth
Let us one day be rid of its curse
Let us not ignore the problem, or falsely claim
That this source of tragedy, misery, and pain
Is valuable, and it we should not avert
This suggestion would strike us as absurd
If senescence didn’t already exist
Would anyone propose that we decide to add it?
That we make people’s lives get worse the more they age?
That we make life fade, with each turning page?
May death depart, may aging start
To stop, and stop its start
Its slow insidious creep, as each new moment fades
May it shatter like a vase
Let us one day proclaim “Wherefore”
“Was there senescence in those days of yore”
Your poetry is actually alright. If you like it do it!