At one hundred three, I’ve outlived my dreams,
Watched progress dismantle the truths once esteemed,
The world spins faster while I grow still,
A relic breathing against time’s will.

I’ve buried relatives, friends, shed many tears,
While strangers sing of the “golden years,”
They call me blessed to see such a life unfold,
Yet laughter turns wistful as old sorrows are told.

My hands recall the weight of rotary dials,
When neighbors shared laughter across grocery aisles,
Now screens stitched to faces, making contact surreal—
A network of longing too distant to feel.

My centenarian mind remembers when air
Was sweet to breathe, when water ran crystal clear.
But smog dims the sunlight; old forests recede,
While progress devours what new industries need.

My wrinkled skin bears a lifetime of scars,
Enduring the ruins of love’s old wars,
Of seeing children pulled into pixel streams,
Lost in the rapture of electric dreams.

They wheel me to a window for the evening’s glow,
And point to towers fevered, pulsing far below—
“Isn’t progress wonderful?” they sing,
As I recall forests of oak from which I would swing.

The future? Child, I’ve lived through ten decades past
Of “breakthroughs” meant to make perfection last.
Each generation thinks they’ll solve it all,
Then leaves their mess for others when they fall.

The nurses smile gently, and call me dear,
But cannot grasp the shadow I fear—
Not dying itself, but the ache I concede,
For progress carves epitaphs no child will read.