I’m not your nurse and carer

You couldn’t keep me locked up forever and a day

Until you are old and frail, until you were old and grey

Then send me out into the world as your own born and raised saviour

And expect me not to love life and savour the sweet taste of life

You couldn’t expect to do that without trouble and strife

You couldn’t keep me shut away in the house each and everyday

Then tell me that there’s no time to play, that life will just get in the way of caring for the old you

You couldn’t do that, so that’s why I left you

I am not your personal handmaiden, born for your every whim

I am not your nurse and carer; I am not your cloned twin

I am my own person, though I’m your family and your kin

If you didn’t treat me that way, you might have kept me and wouldn’t have lived in yin

You are clouded in darkness because of your troublesome ways

It didn’t need to be so, if you let people grow and go their own ways

You did this to yourself, though it hurts me always

But now my life begins…