Time to forget

The old lady rocks her chair in place,

myriad lines etched into her face

She’s not long for this life, she’s done her time –

she remembers long ago when in her prime

Young and pretty, so full of life,

met a young man, became his wife

But fairy tales aren’t real, they’re all in the mind –

from then on her life was not very kind

Four children and sags on her body to show

the pain and the stresses that no man could know

And her husband, once her valiant prince,

grew tired of her, left – hasn’t been seen since

Always a struggle to feed her brood,

but she battled on whatever her mood

Clothing them, loving them, reading them books,

ignoring the neighbours’ judgmental looks

As she let another man into her door,

work of kind, so they wouldn’t be poor

She knew of the whispers, she knew what they said,

ignored it, let it go over her head

I’m not a whore, she said to herself,

as she hid a few dollars at the back of the shelf

As her babes grew and flew from her nest

she gradually felt weight lift from her breast

She’d sacrificed much to help them grow

and enter the world with their pride on show

“You are who you are”, she told them anew,

“Don’t ever let anyone walk over you!”

As years passed and age lines pitted her face,

she watched each one winning their own personal race

Now she can relax, she’s earned her time out –

isn’t that what this life’s all about?

She takes a deep breath, rocks slowly in place,

and a smile creeps over her old craggy face

When her time is up she’ll have no regret –

     it’s time to move on, time to forget