How far can you bend without breaking?
At what point can you no longer stand straight
before starting the inevitable dance
of weight awkwardly shifted side to side.
Where do you feel pain points,
restrictions, tight knots of tension,
muscles pulled taut?
What causes you to hunch over—
pulled down by the weight
of a broken world?
When will you snap—
pushed beyond your limits
with a painful yelp
and an embarrassing display
of the worst version of you?

The older we grow
the more we feel our limitations.
It’s harder to touch our toes,
to turn right and left
without getting stuck uncomfortably
in the “wrong” direction.
We ache and groan and wistfully remember
days of our youth—
when life was simplified into right and wrong;
when it didn’t matter how much gravity
pulled us down,
we were ready to spring upward.

To maintain agility
into our golden years,
we must flex our abilities.
We must continue to challenge
our core foundations.
We must keep strengthening our joints,
alerting our brains,
nourishing our souls,
flexing our human abilities.

Originally published in Objects Things Stuff—Messy Bits We Carry Around (Dark Thirty Poetry Publishing, 2025)

SDG