Those Horrid Age Spots
This is the last Writers' Pantry... but not the last of Poets and Storytellers United! Writers' Pantry (Sunday's promptless) and Weekly Scribblings (Wednesday prompt) will be combined after today into one Friday event (promptless or prompt, poet's choice).
My lament on the state of my hands began with my actually wondering when the spots appeared, but the poem is much exaggerated!
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| photo found on Pinterest, no credit given |
When did the skin
on my hands get so thin?
When did the “age spots”
of advertisements begin?
When did they turn
to an old lady’s hands?
When did the hourglass
run short of sands?
And they ache in the cold!
When did that start?
They’re stiff in the morning!
I’m falling apart!
When did all of me
suddenly age?
When will my story
turn the last page?
©2021 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved
I will admit, no illusions ... my gnarly spotted stiff fingers tell the story of decades of life ... for which I am incredibly grateful. Great write, Lisa.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I have certain scars that bring back stories too! Not just surgeries, but little childhood things and one from some debris when my sister-in-law and I were moving scaffolding to sell after my husband died.
DeleteI love that the whole time I read your poem my eyes were really wide, also that I found myself looking at my hands more than once (and remembering the the painful hands when temps are cold business started a very long time ago for me).
ReplyDeleteI think the terrified tone of the poem is a perfect illustration of the kind of reaction that sort of advertisement get out of people. It's one of the reasons I dislike them so much. I can't stand the idea of one human being scaring another for profit.
The television commercial for the same product, using the same tag line of "horrid," was on when I was a child, and made a big impact on me! Aging was "horrid" and would I get those ugly "embarrassing" spots (another brand called them "embarrassing" and the women wore white gloves to hide them). Men didn't seem to worry about it.
DeleteHa, I always imagined you as a vibrant young thing! My own hands, now ... but I don't really care (unless I see close-up photos – then I do for a moment, before I shrug).
ReplyDelete:) No, I haven't been young for a while (I'm 64) and I have never been "vibrant!" I do feel young when I remember my brothers are 10 and 15 years older than I. Then, it comes back my son turns 40 in December, and I'm not so young anymore!
DeleteAs the first guy to reply, I do not worry about these spots but I saw my siblings recently and remarked how old they looked. Age sneaks up on us all.
ReplyDeleteLet's live before the last page is turned!
Ha! How did they take that? Mine are so much older than I am, there is no way I could say that without it being an insult. The younger brother used to tease the older every year until a certain age when it stopped being funny to the older. The cards he sent were pretty rude!
Delete