I See A Death In Others

[Cthonian]

Faces I have known
for most of my life,
are seen now, wrinkled
and torn with tired smiles.

These faces I once knew,
three years fresh,
I watch decay slightly,
and in other parts, grow
bloated, tortuous, enlarged.
Eyes that once shone,
now flicker,
scraped and blinked
for perhaps
the several billionth time.

I imagine these faces
thirty years from now.
Corpulent, similar?
I would greet these features,
yet approach them
as if some ancient virus
had desecrated the finest detail
of the soft human face.

And after this,
I watch the faces crumble
and recede inward,
shying away, it seems
from pressure and volume,
and laughter and age.

Skeletal now,
the eyes close and disappear.
Cheekbones collapse,
plates fracture.

Yet I do not know
my own face as well.
What will I remind myself of
in thirty years?
Death? Happiness?