Once I was not,
then there I was.

I wailed and shrieked, 
unable to speak.

For a while I was small,
then, suddenly, so very tall!

‘There was no other way’, 
I heard my breaking voice say.

Then I was young, hung, 
and slightly high-strung.

Too quick I stood center stage, 
pot-bellied in middle age.

While I lived,
and lost,
and loved,
and learned, 
and yearned, 
and earned,
and laughed,
and cried,
I ran out of time.

Once I was someone, 
and now it seems, 
I'm done.

‘Not by choice’,
someone says again, 
this time 
with an old man's voice.