NaPoWriMo 2026, Day 29 prompt: In a poem, compare your everyday present life with your past self, using specific details to conjure aspects of your past and present in the reader’s mind.

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It all started
this morning.

I used to was,
now I’m not;
I could
then I couldn’t;
I used to run,
now I walk;
I used to smoke
now I’d choak.
I used to be,
but now I am;
I used to have,
now I haven’t;
I did,
but now I don’t.

And like Auntie Alice said,
I cannot go today,
my mouth is dry
and I don’t know why,
and my hip hurts
and my lip blurts,
when I look over there;
my neck is sore today,
because of what I did yesterday;
Any kind of hair I’ll take
because mine has gone
and I won’t do fake.
My skin had freckles
that I traded for wrinkles,
and my toe hurts on Tuesdays;
And my eyes are red
and like she said,
“It’s no use going back to yesterday
because
I was a different person then.”

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