Objects in the mirror 
are closer than they appear 
I avoid what I know is there, those lines, those holes, those hairs, those bumps.  
Time has found a place to live on my face.

I am its host.  
Aging is the guest that will not leave without demand. Pay the bill. Move on. Move out. 
Death is the last room we see. I pray I am not alone in there when the last breath is due. 

And why would you want to see how close death is to your flesh?  
I don’t want to see it coming. But I do want to leave time for a proper farewell.  
I don’t end conversations. They drift off until words have reached the end of the rope, until the air is stale with talk and dust and the cold stench of sweat. 

Don’t show me what I look like.

I don’t want to know.  
Don’t look at that image, the one you would never recognize, the old face you gained while life made cuts into the layers of cells your eyes will never see.

Cancer is spreading, not the malignant kind, the metaphorical kind,

and as close to killing you as you could imagine,
if you could imagine that pimple will be the reason they bury you into the soil and turn your skin into stone.