In the house where time doesn’t pass

She sits sullen, a portrait in black.

 

Her spirit wanes, a flicker in gloom,

Shrouded in memory, a solitary tomb.

 

A captive of her conscience, she dwells alone,

Encased in the hold of her shriveling bones.

 

Rings of an oak tree, weathered away,

A missing gold band, long cast astray.

 

Echoes of laughter, whispers of pain,

She withers, a wrinkled trunk in decay.

 

A victim of aging’s rhythm and rhyme,

Time ticks forward, her cognition declines.

 

Gnarled hands reaching to reclaim moments lost,

Grasping for memories at any cost.

 

An inmate of her own design,

She sits sullen in the house where time does not align.