Living my life backwards

In my darker moments I have often wondered if it might be nicer to live our lives the other way round, 

starting with all the knowledge we will ever need, and slowly moving back toward blissful ignorance. 

Or would it?

Living my life backwards

Coming out of the brightest light into the darkest tunnel

the journey takes me back into the room

with mournful relatives standing round.

I breathe my last, first.

Looking at their solemn faces, I smile weakly.

They wander off, and in a week or two

I’m back to feeling myself again

my tumour shrinking.

The visit to the specialist results in a clean bill of health,

so it’s back to work for me.

I already know everything I ever will know

so I must spend some time unlearning.

It takes me forty eight years to shed the shackles

of industry and business, of life and love and family,

of position and promotion, of marriage, child-raising,

and home-making

With the slow dissipation of my knowledge

grows the gradual bliss of ignorance.

The days are longer, brighter, kinder

And my world is shrinking

The days get so long I have to sleep twice or more.

I now know so few people, I can count them

on the fingers of both hands, but it isn’t long before

I need only one hand, but by then I’ve forgotten numbers.

I cry, I’m fed, I’m changed, I sleep.

I feel the pain of birth, but I don’t know it

It is warm, immersed in this belly

My heart beats its first, last.